Crime in Sports - #439 - Liquor & Gold Diggers - Hank Thompson

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

This week, we check out a baseball player, who won a World Series, with Willie Mays... after he shot a man to death in a bar. He was also a WWII veteran, and Negro League superstar. But his love of booze & casual hook ups sent his life spiraling out of control, eventually selling his World Series ring for liquor money, and committing a string of crimes, that he's lucky he wasn't executed for. Does he ever turn it around???Be an alcoholic by the time you should be a junior in high school, get hit in the head with so many baseballs, that you think it might have lead you to a life of crime, and try to turn it around by cleaning pools in the sun with Hank Thompson!!Check us out, every Tuesday!We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail] Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!!  Contact us on... twitter.com/crimeinsports [e-mail] facebook.com/Crimeinsports instagram.com/smalltownmurderSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Explore themes of friendship, loss, and hope with Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. Find what peaks your imagination. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca to sign up. Hello everybody and welcome back to Crime and Sports. Yay! Oh, yay indeed Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petragallo. I! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petragallo. I'm here with my co-host.

I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you so much for joining us today on another insane edition of Crime and Sports. We have more madness for you. It's a little bit old-timey today, which is fun. Terrific. I love the old-timey baseball ones. Those are fun. We have just a wild episode.

Guy who had a real up and down life and it's gonna be fun. I hope you enjoyed the two parter on Tom Payne. That's good stuff there. Before we go on, definitely head over to shutupandgivemurder.com, get your merchandise, get your tickets for live shows, all of that good stuff. All the new dates for Small town murder for 2025 are gonna be

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But you also get new ones every other week one One crime in sports, one small town murder. You get it all. That's what I'm talking about. So this week, which you're going to get for crime and sports, we're going to do just a kind of a fun kind of a palate cleanser for the pedophilia here. Just we're going to, we're going to do, we did this a few years back and we're going to do another edition of terrible sports songs. Great. Athletes singing bad songs. No teams singing bad songs about themselves to a choreographed dance. All this shit because we didn't get

to all of them last time. And there's so many more. No, we got to check it all out. So it's going to be so much fun. I can't wait for that. Then for small town murder, we're going to finally talk about remote viewing. We'll get to that where they think people can concentrate hard enough to not only be psychic, but to see exactly what's going on at this very moment in a fucking mountain. So in a cave, we'll talk all about that shit. Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of that and you get a shout out at the end of the show as well.

Here we go. So this week what we have for you, a little bit of an old timey episode like we said. Not too bad. We're talking, you know, not 1900, a little bit up from there, but fun stuff here. And by the way, look for this in the future. We have several multi-parters coming up here. Bigger ones this year. We have, we're going to do, I don't even know how many parts it's gonna be but we're gonna do kind of a series on evil Knievel at some point

because he I'm reading this book and he's the craziest bastard who's ever lived. I'm talking about all the people we've done He's the craziest by far He was out of his fucking mind and he he was involved in several crime rings and everything else. He's a lunatic. So it's going to be, I don't even know, a five parter. I have no idea. And then we're going to do a long one on Billy Martin as well because holy shit is there never been a bigger menace in the sport of baseball than him. So can't wait. Is Robbie Knievel dead too? I don't think so. Is he? No. Not sure. He did die. Oh, he did die. Okay. Yeah.

I mean, I was a positive. I thought he did. That's crazy. And that's Evil's real first name is Robbie. Yeah. Yeah. Cause his son is, his son is dead too. Yeah. Okay. They're both dead. Yeah. I'll tell you even on that episode, how he got the name, which is ridiculous. Yeah. It's fucking ridiculous. How he got the name, which is ridiculous. Yeah, it's fucking ridiculous how he got the name Evil Can Evil. And then didn't even spell it right, it's so bizarre. Oh, he did that on purpose.

Did he? He did that on purpose because he didn't want it to be like I'm evil, but he wanted it to be like evil still, you know what I mean? But like... A vowel. A fucking jail guy gave him that nickname. A guy who was a jailer who had him in jail

Fucking crazy and it wasn't even based on him. It was based on some other guy It's crazy. It's have I ever fell down as a kid my uncle the drunk one that died under a tree Awful can awful that's the funny part part is, I might as well say it now, there was a guy where Evil Can Evil grew up in Butte, Montana. Yeah. He was like the worst guy in town that got arrested all the time,

so much so he was banned from Montana. Okay, his name. His exile from Montana. His name was- You get out of Butte! Wait, no, that's a Dakota. No, no, no, it was Butte, That's where he grew up. Butte, Montana. Absolutely, this is where this happened. Terrific. And his name was

something-knoffle was his name and everyone called him Awful-Knoffle. That's what happened. That makes it so much better! And then they kicked him out of Montana and he had to move away. They literally, when they kicked him out, they said listen, the judge told him that the bus station is a move away. They literally, when they kicked him out, they said, listen, the judge told him

that the bus station is a block away. Do not get arrested on the way to the bus station or I'm gonna fucking put you in jail. That makes my skin knees much more worth it. It's so fun. So then when Evil Knievel started getting in trouble a couple years later, one of the jailers said, we had an Awful Knoffle, now we got an Evil Knievel.

Perfect. That's so funny. And he said, light bulb fucking, I got an evil-knevel. Perfect. So funny. And he said, light bulb fucking, I'm evil-knevel. That was that. Terrific. Yeah, that's crazy as shit. And that's like the least crazy story of anything that happened in this old fucking guy's life.

I can't wait. I can't wait for that. And that guy spawned a million broken legs across the town. Oh, god. How many injured children? How many fucking huffies lay with a wheel spinning while a kid lays there screaming for his mother to come help him? How many? The original Johnny Knoxville. He was so great. How fucking many? Holy shit, he was a psychopath.

So we'll get to him though. Don't worry. We got, we got China episode. We got a so many good episodes coming up here. So this week we have another very good episode We're gonna talk about Henry Curtis Thompson You've probably never heard of Hank Thompson. This is better known by he's a baseball player and We'll talk about him. He's a third baseman. He is born December 8th, so I mean just past his birthday here. Yeah, it happened. December 8th, 1925. Fuck, he'd be 99 today. 99 he would be, absolutely.

Or he might be, we'll talk. He might still be alive, you won't know until the end of the episode. You're right, great point. He might be sitting right next to Jimmy Carter somewhere. You have no idea, in hospice, yeah. Just go, do you wanna go build a house? I don't know, I'm kinda tired.

Mouth open looking up at the sky, two of them together. So yeah this guy Yeah, he's born. Let's see. Where's he born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma? That's right, Oklahoma City to the father and mother pair of Ollie Thompson and Iona Thompson There's some old-timey those some people who were born turn of the century there, that is, yeah. Ollie, a 1920s name, or Tony Hawk's kid. One of the two. And they're black people too.

So Ollie- Is that right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. These are definitely black people, because Hank played in the Negro leagues. I mean, he was- Okay. Yeah. He played with Satchel Page and shit.

So he's born, like we said, Oklahoma, December 8th, 1925. Everywhere has him listed as being born in Oklahoma City, but in an interview in 1965, he said he was actually born in Muskegee, which is about 125 miles away. His father was a railroad worker and a heavy drinker, which you probably have to be to work on the railroad back then. At the end of the day, you probably need that. His mother, Iona, was a cook and a domestic worker. So both parents, both parents work in- Housekeepers, yeah. Absolutely. The family moved to Dallas, Texas when Hank was just a baby. And his parents

got separated when he was still very small and they got divorced after that and he lived with his mother For them he lived with his mother, but his mother worked a lot trying to take care all these kids now There's seven kids. So that's a lot right, and so his older sister Florence would watch him while his mom was at work and Apparently he was a bit of a handful for Florence I believe a little bit too much, if he's on this show, you can't imagine he'd be easy to watch as a child. Hardly any of the guys we've had would've been

a real treat to watch as a seven year old. He said, my sister Florence was supposed to watch me, but I would sneak off and play ball. All I wanted was to play ball. They made me go to school, but I played hooky. So he didn't give a shit about anything but baseball. And that was it. He liked the streets, that was that.

The streets of Dallas were his home, he said. Hell yeah. By age 11, he was arrested for the first time. So he started off hot here on Crime and Sports. Dallas? Yeah, yeah. Oh boy. He was picked up on suspicion of stealing some jewelry from a car and he said he didn't

do it. We don't know. Eventually though, they couldn't, I guess he didn't have the jewelry so they couldn't prove it so they just busted him for truancy instead. Shouldn't you be in school? Either way you should be in school. So let's go down the list. Anything else?

Did you spit gum on the sidewalk too? Jay walk on the way over to that car. He says so they ended up shipping him off to the Gatesville reform school for six months. Wow. For truancy. God damn. You didn't want to skip school back then. Holy fuck.

Jesus. God damn, you didn't want to skip school back then, holy fuck. No kidding. Jesus. Gatesville had a baseball program, which this is his first time he got to actually play on an organized team. So, you know, not great, you got sent to a reform school, but you actually got to play baseball now. So after this, he decided he wanted to try to keep his nose clean and not be in any more trouble here because he

realized that reform school sucks, baseball or not. It's not good. No one wants to live in reform school, especially in the god damn 20s, in the early 30s. This is a depression era reform school. Think about that, man. That is fucking brutal, man. So after being released, he got sent to live with his dad for a year yeah I got sick yeah I guess so he claimed his father wouldn't let him play baseball I don't know what the reason for that would be not allowed to play

baseball think I have anything else that gets his energy out if he's being a pain in the ass go run around in the field for a while. As a dad that probably has nothing, it's probably a reward to play. So maybe, yeah, man, maybe don't get arrested. And I guess, well, he also beat the shit out of him off. And he said, oh, yeah, it wasn't good. Not a good dad. Not a good dad. No, he wasn't making like this wasn't tough love. He was just a dick. He's just a drunken asshole Yeah, so he went back to live with his mother after that He basically just didn't go to school anymore. Just stopped going to school. Just had no interest 11 around sometime

Age but way too early Yeah, didn't graduate middle school. Fuck high school. Yeah. So instead he would play baseball or just hang out in pool halls. That's all just, you know, that's what kids did a lot back then. That was the arcade for like the eighties kids. Like there was the pool hall was the fifties one. And you know, as, as you get into your drinking age, the pool hall was a cool place to be in the early 2000s too. Today it's not.

Have you been in one recently? No. It's pretty gross. It's pretty stupid. It was a revival, the pool hall. There was an early 2000s pool hall revival. Yeah, it was decent. I remember pool places popping up all over Phoenix and then disappearing five years later.

They're gone now and then they were turned into pool stores after that like actual pools with floaties and Shit, yeah So I think one I store I think one actually did turn in from a pool playing to a pool supply Yeah, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I think it would turn from one to the other and I was I went wow That's the weirdest fucking thing ever What are the odds? Literally like what are the odds still a pool play school? So that's where he's hanging out and he would hang out He would go to Burnett Field which was the home of the Dallas Steers of the Texas League

Baseball team and the Texas League was a pretty big league back then too. That was a big night That whole state has all kinds of shit that's just like an industry within the state. Yeah, it's so comedy clubs. It's so big, that's why. Yeah, music venues. You don't have to leave the state and you can make a living.

Massive size of the state. And there's such different markets. And it's because there's so much distance between them all, you can have a different market elsewhere Well, we've heard of like the comics like back in the 70s and 80s and shit some of the comics that came up in Texas They basically just did a Texas loop. Yep, every fucking Paso San Antonio Yeah, all around Houston and it was just a big circle keep on go Austin was in there, too Yeah, they've got a big circle one one weekend a month and all of a sudden your weekend your month is full

And that and you don't have to leave and you make 80 80 100 grand a year Well, it's the size of like half of Europe. So it's yeah, you know, it's a lot Jesus area Flying from from we gave them too much to Texas takes as long as it takes to fly from Arizona to Seattle Yeah, they get we gave them too much. That's what it is We gave them too much Start splitting it up giving it to other states, New Mexico. You get a little of this. Yeah Oklahoma you get a little bit of this. Well, we'll do it from there and they're all think you know, they've got enough We should just make Texas more than one state. It's very go how much it is too much. It's too much state

I'm sorry. It's too much state. So Hank said the Dallas Steers would let him shag fly balls in the outfield during batting practice, which a lot of minor league teams do sometimes to let kids go out and shag fly balls. That's fun. And occasionally they'd even let him throw batting practice. Throw batting practice. Really? He's got that good of an arm. That's pretty good. He just wanted to play baseball. That's all he did.

He would play in pickup games, sandlot games, recreation leagues, church leagues, anywhere there was baseball going on. And back then, this was like the time of like every fucking park and sandlot had a game going on and baseball and all the kids were playing baseball. And it was's a big deal this isn't like now where kids only play in like crazy competitive leagues or that's it they don't play for fun anymore. And it costs their parents ten grand a year. Yeah they have to travel all over the place

it's fucking insane. Unbelievable. I don't know how people can do it. And if your kids gonna play in the major leagues that's what they have to do that's the fucked up part. That's the fucked up part because you're competing with kids from other countries that that's all they do all they do Yeah, kids in the Dominican. That's all they do is play baseball. That's it Yeah, so your kid don't even go to school. No your kid dicking off it You know for on a fucking little league team playing twice a week ain't gonna cut it later on and Dicking off seven hours a day in a school, that's crazy. Fucking off learning math and shit.

Fucking morons. Man, so he said by the way, when he's doing this, he's a teenager, he's hanging out at pool halls looking for Sandlot games, doing whatever he can do, and it's at this point about 15 years old he starts drinking. This will be a problem for him for the rest of his life. Oh boy. Huge problem and later on he was asked why'd you start drinking and why'd you keep drinking and I love his answer because it's the most basic fucking answer. Are they the same answer beginning and continuing?

No he says he just liked the taste of alcohol. Just like the taste of alcohol. That's it. Yeah. No, and I still do he likes the taste of booze He says and not the feeling or the effect just the taste of it delicious. It's Gatorade to me That's a psychotic answer. That's a crazy answer for that shit. Yeah, I Anyone who's like I just love the taste of bourbon. No that person in a fucking institution. No, they don't Like I'll drink scotch once in a while. It doesn't taste good.

No, the idea is to get the one that hurts the least. Exactly. This one tastes the least bad of all of these. My face, I go, ah, less when I drink this. I don't make a face when I swallow this. I'll drink this one. This doesn't give me a headache in an hour. That's all there is to it

That's never I like the taste of this that's fucking horrifying if you water down a really good bourbon enough though It's really like a fuck man. It's like leather. It's like that nice Yeah, right, I mean you do that with anything and that's and I'm a piece of shit too I'm not like a classy guy. Like I'll get like for Christmas someone will buy me like a good bottle of scotch like an 18 year old single malt or something and I will absolutely put it on rocks. Like I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not going to do it neat and it's too much. I'm going to let it melt for a couple minutes. It's going to be cold and watered down and that's how I'm drinking

it. I'm not a fucking. You put enough water on Jack Daniels and you can swallow that. It's not so bad. It goes right down, yeah. You gotta just dilute it a bit, you know. You can drink bleach if you put enough water in it. Not that bad, right? But if you just neat Jack Daniels, holy fuck, why don't you just slam your dick in a screen door? How do you do that to yourself? When we were on stage in Phoenix, Larry gave us shots. What the hell was that that he gave us? I think that was Makers. It was pretty decent. It wasn't so bad.

I was going to say, that wasn't horrifying. Yeah, I think it was Makers. It's not my thing to do, but it was a nice thing. And it wasn't the worst. I was like, oh god, I don't even know what this is. This is going to be horrible. And I was like, OK, that wasn't that bad, so good. Right.

If they'd thrown a little bit of water in that fucking shot those all night Line them up line them up. Let's do it So Soon a local semi-pro Negro League team or not Negro League team, but a team all black team recruited him at 15 years old Okay, so my team but not in a Negro not in that not in the Negro League in a Negro League a semi pro Negro League, so he also reported Reportedly played for several local amateur and semi pro teams in the Dallas area during the time, too He's just playing as much baseball as he can

He played it looks like he played for the Dallas area during the time too. He's just playing as much baseball as he can. He played, it looks like he played for the Dallas Green Monarchs during the 1941 and 42 seasons later on as he's, you know, what, 17, 16, 17 years old. He's playing for them, which was a known team. In 1942, he met Bonnie Serrell, who was not a woman, by the way. He was a baseball player for the Kansas City Monarchs. Yeah, you're like, oh he met his wife That's nice. That's nice. No, he doesn't He met a fella named Bonnie very very sexy man named Bonnie

Who was a star for the Kansas City Monarchs? Oh, okay. Yeah So the following spring, the traveling secretary of Kansas City sent Hank a train ticket to the Monarchs' spring training camp in New Orleans. Yeah. And said, come on down. So in 1943, he's only 17 years old,

he is signed by the Kansas City Monarchs, which was one of the major teams of the Negro League at that point. And the Monarchs, they're a very well-known team. If you watch the Sandlot ever, that's the hat the black kids wear as the Kansas City Monarchs. Great shit. And that's where the museum is at, and they've got so much Kansas City Monarchs shit in there.

That's a huge deal. And the museum is dominated because the Monarchs were champs a lot. It's dominated with amazing Monarchs players. All sorts of shit. So he immediately became the team's starting right fielder. And the majors, he'll play third base a lot. I think that's his main position. But back, you know, if you can hit, hit they were gonna find a place in the field for you

And if they had a starting third base when you're playing right field now So which third base and right field kind of that makes sense because they Well, they're both big arm positions. They're both Oh, yeah, you can and from 13 you can or from right so like you can kind of interchange those a little bit So let any of those left side of the infield guys like not just a cannon but like a cannon on target, too Yeah, like Gary fuck man You got a blast it in guys like Gary Sheffield was a shortstop third baseman when he first came in They moved him to right field guys like that. So

That's what he's doing. He admits that by the age of 17 when he's playing for the Bonn arcs He's already a full-blown alcoholic, which is great. Already has the shakes in the morning. Wow at 17 he should be in a junior like this is a lot. He's got a goddamn job. Yeah he's got like he's got like 35 year old problems. You throw a couple of kids in there this guy is 40. And a pain in the ass wife or an ex-wife for Christ sake. You throw a couple of kids in there, this guy is 40. And a pain in the ass wife or an ex-wife for Christ's sake. You throw a couple kids in there, he's us. What's going on?

Pretty shocking. What's going on here? So yeah, 17, he's an alcoholic, real nice. 1943, Kansas City Monarchs, they're 44 and 27 over that span. That's great. 44, 27 and 1 actually. But we'll let the 1 slide for now. Sure.

Sometimes there's a rain out. Well, yeah, a lot of times too it's curfew because this is pre-lights. So yeah, it goes to that. And if they weren't playing again that season, then that would be that. So yeah, a couple of Hall of Famers on his team. Willard Brown Hilton Smith and then two probably most famous Negro League players of all time Satchel Paige and Buck O'Neill are both on the team

Not too shabby. Yeah, if you're gonna go start with you know a Team page on any team you're 17 and you're watching Satchel Paige and Buck O'neill play every day. That's yeah, that's a pretty good education and I'm looking at the rest of the team and the Youngest person besides him on this team is 23 He's got six years before he's the yeah before he's even second youngest. Yeah, I think about socially how hard that would be Yeah, you're 17 and the youngest is 23. And there's not a bunch of 23-year-olds.

There's like three 23-year-olds. And there are, I mean, a good number of these people are over 30. 30, 42, 29, 28, 31, 42, 31, 35, 29, 29, 31, 35, 36, 34, 36, 37. These are men Yeah, who are playing to feed their families It's a different level of need to a guy that's got two and a half years minimum before he's not a teenager before he's not a teenager Yes

Exactly. They always say that's why like Certain sports you can come in when you're younger and it's fine. Physically you match up, but like the NFL, you can't start playing the NFL when you're 17. You can't play when you're 19. No, physically. These are 30 year old men who have mortgages and they're paying three different mortgages for their different families and their kids. They're not, they're not letting you beat them out for a position.

They will kill you first. And they've got a concern about at least one organ or limb or muscle. Something, yes. They have an injury that might end their career and ruin it all. So at 17, that's really rough, man. That is fucking crazy. By the way, there's a couple of people on this team, three different people with unknown birth dates.

I love that. That's fucking wild. I can't love that more. I know. That's so fucking amazing. That is goddamn amazing. Veterans all called him Youngblood. That was his name, which is not a big stretch.

This year, his first year, he played in 40 games, had 130 at bats, hit 315. Golly. Six doubles, two triples, a homer, 14 ribbies, two steals. Goddamn. 314 is pretty goddamn impressive. In a league where there was so much talent. It was a very elite league. It's crazy. Yeah. The only thing is a lot of times there would be the same, you're playing against tired pitchers a lot too, which is the way they played the games is different.

Sometimes they played more than two games in a day. I mean, it would be, so I mean, and sometimes one pitcher would pitch two out of the three. Crazy. I forget, was it three or four games that the guy played in one day? Yeah. The stories in that museum are fucking mind-blowing.

It's crazy, yeah. It's the greatest place. So many books, and it's fucking interesting. I wish, I mean I don't wish I was alive back then because that is a hard time to live. Yeah, you'd have been in a war. But just for, yeah, right, I wouldn't have been able to watch. But the history alone involved in it is amazing. No shit, it really is.

Very busy fighting Germans. Being kicked off a boat in the middle of freezing So 17 years old hitting 314 in a major professional league Playing with satchel page and how you buck O'neill call you young blood. I'm gonna say it right now grace That's grace. It can't get any cooler than that if you're 17, right? You're the coolest 17 year old on earth at that point absolutely that is fucking cool then December 15th 1943 This is a week after his 18th birthday. Yeah, and

Man, this is like, you know war really bombs are going off. Yeah, this is a lot I think that's probably why a lot of the guys on the team are older by the way and not cuz they can't get drafted Not a lot of tool exactly not a lot look at the major leagues at that time the Browns went to the World Series who were like a perennial last place team yeah because everybody else had their good players and overseas drafted Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams are overseas and you know all of their guys are still here cuz they're somebody named Fred Simmons pitching yeah a guy with a little bit of enough of an injury to keep him out of the army but you know

enough to keep make him a half decent baseball player so on this day December 15th 1943 Hank Thompson is arrested in Dallas for larceny of less than $50 that's a lot of that's a whole car man. Yeah you's a lot of, that's a whole car, man. Yeah. You could buy a house for $50 back then. Stealing $20 was a big deal back then. That's like stealing $500, you know, or some crazy shit. That's a month's fucking pay. Oh, that's big.

That's absolutely. So then he ended up going into the military, which a lot of these guys did at this point. Ball players or not, if you were able-bodied enough age you were going over Yeah, you were fucking going over so as soon as he turned 18 that happened a lot and he He both and the Negro leagues and major leagues everybody there the Monarchs lost Willard Brown Joe Green Connie Johnson buck O'Neill Ted, and Hank Thompson all to the military. They all went, huh? All to the military, yeah.

Which Buck O'Neill was 30 fucking six years old at this point or something. That's crazy. What the hell was he doing? Or 31. He must have been a specialist of something. I guess. Or he wanted to. He might have signed up.

A lot of the guys volunteered. Don't even give me a gun, I'll just bring my bat. Yeah, I got it. Yeah, I just got to beat the shit out of these fucking goddamn German bastards over there. Dracula, the ancient vampire who terrorizes Victorian London. Blood and garlic, bats and crucifixes. Even if you haven't read the book, you think you know the story. One of the incredible things about Dracula is that not only is it this

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He spent most of the next two years in the military serving as a machine gunner with the 1,000 or 1695th combat engineers in which all the soldiers were black and most of the officers were white southerners. So that must have been a lot of fun. Boy is that fucking... Jesus Christ. What did we... did we really do that? We call... let's go everybody.

We're gonna call this Plantation Europe everyone. Come on now. What the fuck are you doing here? This led to... Operation... Operation Dixieland. Yeah. Operation the Krautser Cotton, get em.

Operation Cotton Head. That's it. Get em. Oh boy. So, unsurprisingly, this led to racial tensions within the unit, obviously. Amazing. That's strange. That's crazy.

Strange, you know, 80 years after the end of the civil war that that would cause problems. Operation Annabellum was weird. Is that right? So he was also drinking even more during this time. Sure. Cause now you're scared of being killed. Right. Now you have a reason to drink. Not just the enemy. No, now you have a reason to drink. That's what I mean. Before you're just dicking off. This is a fuck. I'd be drinking my ass off here. He was inducted into the army in March of 44 and he ended up being discharged on June 20th, 1946 as a sergeant. So he made it up a rank there two ranks he fought

in the Battle of the Bulge where he was wounded really yeah that's that's how many fucking a real yeah one of the battles everybody knows yeah this these guys back then man from the 40s and 50s they came home with fucking shrapnel wounds yeah right and and played baseball, they came home with fucking shrapnel wounds and played baseball still and came home from this and went right into play. Like imagine just the mental part of that, of going from war to then, come on back, there you go, now you're center field for the Yankees, go play. And if you don't hear from somebody in your family that's over there for three, four months,

you don't know if the next person that you talk to is going to be somebody giving you horrible news Oh, yeah, I'm gonna see the next person in uniform. Maybe them or their superior telling you. Yeah, not coming back It's fucking nuts. I just now I can't imagine Imagine if we told Juan Soto. Yes, I know they gave you seven hundred something million dollars But you got to hold off on that for a couple years because you have to go fight the Japanese. What the fuck? Hang tight. Syria is fucked up. You know what I'm saying? That's what happened back then. That's unbelievable. It was wild. You might come back like Dottie Henson's husband needing a crutch. Yeah.

He might come back like Bill Pullman limping in for the fight. Limping, calling her, what do you call her? Cowpoke or some shit like that? Some shit like that. I don't remember what that was. Milkmaid or I don't know what he called her. Some fucked up. Get over here milkmaid. I think he called her cow poke. He called her some fucked up farm hand. I haven't gotten any since that whore house in Okinawa. Come on over here.

Come over here AC. Let's fuck whatever he said. I think that's about right. That was the connotation anyway. Come here, straw-toothed dick. Let's make out. What? Holy shit. So in the service, at one point he went AWOL on one occasion and spent time in the stockade

for fighting on another occasion. He's drunk. Let's be honest here. And not taking any shit. Yeah, AWOL because he was probably passed out somewhere Wasn't even I wasn't even alert. Yeah, I didn't even know I was a wall. Yeah fuck But on the battlefield, I guess he was a bad motherfucker. He was brave He won two medals for bravery and was promoted to sergeant. So

Good for him. He said that the his military service was one of the highlights of his life. In an interview in 1965, he was asked about his military service and his participation in the Battle of the Bulge. And he said, quote, If there was ever a moment that I did something for society, that was it. But you can't make it three good days. You can't make three good days balance off the rest of a man's life. Those are three. Three days at the battle? Battle of the Bulge, that's all it was.

Wow. Yeah, that's it. So three good days. My three best days were at the Battle of the Bulge. That's it. He said that's the only time he was contributing to society is what he was getting at. Wow. The rest of the time he was going to drag.

My three best days were on the beaches and Normandy That is rough He is when he is discharged. He's immediately returned to the Monarchs and starts playing second base Oh for the Monarchs and this is in the midst of capturing the league title that year as well. So not bad. There's 60 19 and 2 that year which is So not bad. There's 60, 19 and two that year, which is killing it. That is great. Yeah. They lost the World Series though, four to three against the Newark Eagles, who I believe had Larry Doby playing for him at that point. A couple other guys like that. Larry Doby is the first black American league

player, which is incredible. He was in before Jackie Robbins. No, no, Jackie Robbins came first. Okay. So you have been like two weeks later, Larry Doby. So he had to go through all the exact same shit. Jackie Robinson went through except got none of the credit for it. And that guy is the most underrated cat there is. Is he an inferior player too? I mean, he's a great player. Jackie Robinson was a he was a he's different He was different Well, he played so fucking fast and hard and just played a different style of ball But Adobe was a fucking great player too. There's different types of players. So it's hard to do that But anyway, they lost that year still but I mean good year not bad

they still have buck O'neill and satchel page and Hilton Smith Hall of Famers on the team and Now Hanks 20. So I mean he's still the youngest guy on the team and now Hank's 20 so I mean he's still the youngest guy on the team by a long shot but you know I guess he's probably a little more thought of as an adult now that he just came back from the war. Yeah he's got some adult problems now that's for sure. A little bit. He's certainly got a reason to drink. No shit he's hitting lead off for the Monarchs that year. And he was at 1946, let's see, yeah, he had 264 that year with one home run and this is only 99 or 91 at bats.

So not very much. Oh, that's the post season, I'm sorry. Regular season, he hit 296. Only seven games though, because he came at the end of the year. So yeah. After the 1946 Negro League World Series Satchel Paige formed an all-star team that Barnstormed against a white team and this has been going on

Since the teens they've been doing this Babe Ruth was a huge doer of these he did He would take Lou Gehrig with him too sometimes But a lot of times they would he would go into these towns and he was famous and That's where you made the money man. Oh, he was all money. He was famous for Paying all the Negro League players that they play against out of his pocket paying them more than they got paid Like he'd bring like an extra fucking few thousand dollars to hand out to them for playing So it was cool is known as a being a decent guy like that. This team had a kind of Buck O'Neill and guys like that. Hank Thompson's playing third base on the

team. So yeah, a lot of people here. Bob Feller's team had Bob Lemon, Phil Rizzuto, Charlie Keller, Mickey Vernon, Stan Musial, guys like that. So a lot of Hall of Famers on both sides of that one playing. No kidding. Huge. The tour started at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh on September 30th with a 3-0 win by the Bobfeller All-Stars. Over the 1946 tour, some of the stadiums and cities where they played, they played at Yankee Stadium, they played in Baltimore, Columbus, Dayton, Comiskey Park, Kansas City, Wichita, Wrigley Field, Long Beach, California, Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, which was the original Wrigley Field where the Hollywood

Stars played, and then San Diego also. And that was where, I mean it's the start of the All-Star game. It actually was a big fucking deal for this game to come through. Oh, yeah, this is what you wanted to see There's a great great ball players. Yeah, and then we'll have a thing of their attendance to they drew crowds man Yeah, especially for cause this is a time where games are being played during the day. Yeah on weekdays So if you look at old pictures of ball games, unless it's a World Series game Yeah, screw the crap the fucking stands are two thirds empty. Yeah, because it's they're playing at one o'clock in the afternoon

So anybody who can afford to go is at work. Yeah Work or school or something like that. It's a very strange deal there The tour here and this is fucked up because this guy's an asshole The tour was abruptly cut short on October 26th before all the games could be played when Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis who's a complete asshole Fucking douchebag and just a real shitty racist, too. Just a dick Had the to ordered the tour stopped Stupid but it was still very successful. It was a good deal here.

Absolutely. Over the tour, yeah, a lot of people got to be seen also. Yeah. These players got to be seen. They drew 27,462 people in Yankee Stadium. Wow. Which is great. 22,577 in Los Angeles.

Goddamn. Then they were back at Yankee Stadium drawing 22,000. 21,000 at Comiskey Park, 13,000 at Newark, so I mean, it was pretty great. Bob Feller made $80,000 for the Barden Storming Tour. Oh my God. Which this is when salaries for baseball players, I think the minimum was 5,000 a year.

So great players made 40,000 back then. players I think the minimum was five thousand a year. Yeah so nothing great players made forty thousand back then the best per year playing the whole season Bob Feller made eighty thousand just for that just for fucking a few dates I mean fantastic that's where the money was yeah he said I guess they said Sam Jethro who's one of the Negro League players gave Feller a huge amount of credit for the tour. He said he gave us a chance to show what we could do against major leaguers, which made the major leagues go, oh, all right, these guys can play.

There is good or better than most of us. Yeah. What the hell's going on here? So after this, Hank journeys down to Cuba to play third base for the Havana Reds in the Cuban Winter League. And this is when Cuba was like considered like a party destination. This is one's like casinos and like, you know, it was some like Riviera place to be. You know what I mean?

Like, I mean, the savanna bananas, obviously they rhyme, but Havana had a baseball team and they didn't go with the fucking bananas. No, and they I think they grow bananas on Cuba. Right, that's my point, it's a tropical place. I don't think a single banana grows in fucking Georgia. Well, I think you don't wanna be known as a banana. That's not really a manly thing. Whereas the reds just mean you wear red clothes. It's like the reds were the red stockings at first.

And then they were like, that sounds really like... Boston. Also, pretty gay, right? Do we sound... I mean, it's fine, but do we want to project gayness on everybody? Red stockings? That doesn't sound... Right?

Doesn't sound tough, is what I'm getting at. Doesn't sound real tough. He's got some fucking stockings under your pants? Is that what's going on? Yeah, it doesn't. I think people are going to get the wrong impression, is what I'm getting at. I just don't want them to... It's a real thin material what's going on? Yeah, it doesn't. I think people are gonna get the wrong impression is what I'm getting at. I just don't want them to-

It's a real thin material holding your balls up? Jesus, boys. And by the way, a severely unpopular opinion as it might be, I cannot stand that savannah banana bullshit. I hate it with every fiber of my fucking being. And I'm not far behind you on this. I hate it. Like, it makes me physically angry.

It's an insult to baseball, man. You know what it reminds me of? Comic magicians from the 80s. Cause what they're trying to be is the Globetrotters, and the Globetrotters are influenced by this. They had Will Chamberlain playing for them at one point. The Globetrotters had great players. These are just fucking

Dorky minor leaguers right dorky white kids named Preston that are playing that are doing a fucking tick-tock jig stop Yes, and they're like, yeah, but he caught up behind his back Yes And if you ask a major leaguer to do that they go why number one and then they go, okay Hit me the ball three times they'd be able to do it perfectly because they're better comic magicians are either a magician who is not the greatest magician so they learn a couple of shitty jokes to make an act or a comic who's not a great comic so he learns a couple of fucking magic tricks and that's what they did. They're not funny enough or talented enough to be on Broadway and they're not fucking

and they're not fucking good enough baseball players to be in the major league so let's all pay exorbitant amounts of money to watch them. Yeah, fuck off and do dumb shit and put the ball in their fucking shirt and whatever bullshit they're doing. I can't stand somebody with a banana. Holy fucking shit. It makes me so I see yellow when I see that red. Oh, they're a huge draw.

Huge draw. They sell out. You got to buy their tickets like a year in advance Yeah, it's fucking crazy, and you couldn't pay me enough to watch that game because I would rush out on the field and fucking Beat so I wouldn't go watch the Globetrotters today. Oh, no, they got nobody they got nobody That's you know I mean metal arc was in there That was great. That was fun. You had people that were recognizable They don't have stars anymore. Back then there wasn't a lot of options for professional basketball to play. They had

the NBA, which wasn't a big deal like it is now, and the guys didn't get paid jack shit. And then there was a couple of like the Eastern League and leagues like that. So the Globetrotters was where you made money. That's why the guys did it back then. Nowadays if you- And they started that because of the Negro leagues, because of the clowns, which were doing fun things, but they were recognizable people. Name a Savannah banana motherfucker. Yeah, that's what I mean. Fucking Hank Aaron play for the clowns? I think yes, he did. Yes, there you go. I know Will Chamberlain played for the fucking... He did. Connie Hawkins

played for the Globetrotters. I can name 15 NBA Hall of Famers that played for them. So a little bit different. You got a bunch of five foot six HGH up white guys with great six packs for Instagram and TikTok on the banana. Yeah, nice smiles. Your headshot shouldn't be the main reason of why you're making a ball team or not.

That's a problem. Why do you Dougie better than throw from shortstop motherfuckers? Oh god so he played in a 66 game season in Cuba there in the Winter League and the highlight here was opening the stadium in Havana. Cuban baseball entrepreneur Roberto Maduro spent two million dollars on the new stadium, which back then was a fucking astronomical amount of money to spend on it. That's a crazy amount of money to me, but to build the stadium, that's nothing. That's nothing.

Yeah, that's who gots it. They're a billion dollars now. Game one of the Cuban Winter League season was a sellout. So I mean, they were doing great that year he hit 320 down there with four home runs in 225 at bats 32 RBI so not bad at all here he was one of the top hitters in the league 453 slugging percentage too and he led the Cuban League with six triples and yeah he was. He was given the name. Oh god Fuck, I don't know how to pronounce that

It's a long one too. It means machine gun essentially because of his hard-hit balls that sprayed over the field here So that's what they called him machine gun. Oh, yeah Spanish for the black machine gun so He was selected as an all-star down there as well Yeah, so very well So then he goes to play for Venezuela as well which and the offseason guys used to do that all the time especially young guys they they'd go play the Dominican League the

Venezuelan leagues all that kind of thing so yeah, he goes down there and plays they already had a pretty strong team and he joined the team and Did goddamn well not too bad at all Negro Diamante down there and plays they already had a pretty strong team and he joined the team and Did goddamn well not too bad at all Negro Diamante down there with him probably I don't know. I don't know who's on his team here. I'm not sure Ducky Davenport was down there. I know that much. They just say the players the American guys they signed Okay, so 1947 he is going to be back to the Kansas City Monarchs. They go 62 and 36 that year and Finished second in the American League

Yeah, Willard Brown buck O'Neill still playing satchel Paige still playing at 40. Yeah, Jesus Christ They got a guy named Cannonball Barry. That sounds fun. Yeah, that's a fucking cool name. I like that So I had killer names man. Oh because it was all nicknames back then Yeah, right. Because there's no TV, so the writers had to figure some way to make them colorful, so they gave nicknames. That's how it worked.

And they all had cool nicknames. Even the girls had better nicknames. Like, fuck yeah. Just such a great fucking time. I don't want anything to do with it, because there's no air conditioning, and everything sucked. The food was terrible, by the way.

Bad food, everything was expensive, no air conditioning, everything was miserable, uncomfortable and wearing wool. Watch Mad Men and watch what they're eating and you go, God, what were you people fucking eating back then? What's wrong with you? So during the on opening day of the 1947 season, Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers had been, became the first black guy in the in the major leagues and then about three months later Larry Doby came in and

Prompting the Browns the st. Louis Browns who were in last place always and nobody came to watch their fucking games They tried to capitalize on this so they were like alright. This makes sense here. I guess so Hank Thompson and Willard Brown were signed and Then just thrown then just thrown it. This is a difference. So yeah, Jackie Robinson got signed They put him he was in the minors at first with the Montreal Royals and all that kind of thing Hank Thompson and Willard Brown they just threw them right into the lineup of one of the worst teams there is. So that was really hard, I guess. And Hank is a huge alcoholic and also known as a bit of a hothead also.

Oh, is that right? Yeah, he's drinking all the time. He's fighting in the army. He's been in the stockade for Christ's sake. Brown's manager Muddy Rule, Jesus Christ, was vocal about not wanting the two players on his team as well. That doesn't help. That doesn't help at all. So during an interview with the Washington Afro-American in 1950, Thompson said, quote, no one on the club would have anything to do with us. They wouldn't speak to us and they wouldn't even

warm up with us. If Brown wasn't around and I asked another player to warm up with me, he'd just shake his head. Dude. Yeah, the manager, the manager fucking told everybody not to welcome these guys basically. What a fucking stain on American history. It's just so insulting. Well it's just so shitty too. Yeah. When it's one thing if it's okay, how do I put this? Sorry. No, no, no. It's fucking it's insanity that they would do something that was a detriment to themselves. Right. Because they were so full of fucking hate that they were like, even if that makes me a better manager and gets me more money,

I still don't want them here. Can't it think about that even in terms of selfishness That's more important to you. That's cuz my daddy would be mad at me cuz you're a grown man and call your dad And your name is money. So who the hell are you? Jesus Christ, so I guess they only they got the guys do they got them cheap They got him for five thousand dollars a piece from the monarchs and put him right in there Thompson was playing second base and batting seventh and In his first game he went hit listen for at bats and had an error and they got crushed 16 to 2 by the athletics Which was very normal for the Browns to be crushed like that by the athletic

That's not that's not helping. No, it's not helping. The public perception and feeling. No, that's not exactly making your presence felt in a good way. The Browns that year were 59 and 95. Wait a minute. Get out of here. Bad team.

Is that right? Bad team. 59 and 95. Real shit team. Yeah, not good at all. Okay, here. Now on this team, by the way There's some salaries listed. Let me the highest paid player on the team appears to make $18,000

Jesus so that's what we're talking about. It's not necessarily that they're cheap. It's that they don't have any fucking money There's not a lot of revenue. Yeah, there's no TV money. The only thing coming in is tickets That's hard to pay when you got nothing That's that's the problem here. So and the I mean the owners were cheap cunts, too But still they there wasn't like they weren't making billions of dollars by any stretch of the imagination So yeah, he he does well that year he hits For both st. Louis and Kansas City that year. He 311 combined so not bad and yeah they also thought it was like the Browns owners thought it was like oh this is something that'll get just news drummed up you know we got a couple of players

from the other league and maybe that'll do something here according to st. Louis general manager Bill DeWitt he said quote they failed to reach major league standards he said, because Thompson and Brown are released on August 23rd after a game against the Philadelphia Athletics. Oh, so the players didn't pan out? No, he's saying major leagues. No, he said they just weren't good enough. He said they weren't they weren't good is what he said, which is total horseshit.

According to numbers for the Browns, he hit 256, which I bet there's guys with lower batting averages on the team. You know what I mean? Like that's not bad at all. So they would have had to apparently, the way the deal with the Monarchs worked is they would have had to give them the Monarchs an extra $5,000 each to extend the length of them. So they just sent them back. They're just cheap basically.

That's what it is. And so they were like, yeah, they didn't reach our standards rather than saying, we didn't feel like paying $10,000 for these two guys again. What they didn't reach was $10,000 worth of value to us, but that's what it is. They'd have to be fucking all-stars for the 10 grand to, they'd have to outperform the dollar, and they didn't do that.

Yeah, because that plus their salaries. Now, this was their manager, Bill DeWitt, his name was. Later on, he'll own the Cincinnati Reds. He's a real trailblazer for March Shot, as we'll talk about here. When he owned the Reds in the 60s, he ordered Pete Rose to not hang around with the black ball players.

Oh boy. Yeah, in the 60s. And DeWitt made probably, they made a bad trade too. He sent Frank Robinson to the Orioles of Frank Robinson. It's a fucking Hall of Famer, gold-plated Hall of Famer. Sent him to the Orioles for Milt Pappas, Jack Baldshin, and Dick Simpson. Milt Pappas?

Milt Pappas, who was a decent player, but not Frank Robinson. If you watch I Think it's is it in the movie part or something else bull Durham They mentioned milk Papas and Frank Robinson being a bad trade so I'll be in milk Papas Which sounds disgusting milk was actually a decent player, but Frank Robinson's a fucking Hall of Famer I mean, there's no no doubt there after leaving st. Louis Hank and Willard there returned to the Monarchs and they had a negative thought of the major leagues. Sure. Yeah, they said they thought they were significantly better than a lot of

their teammates and they weren't allowed to play as much as they wanted to and then they said they weren't any good when they were. So yeah, Brown was quoted as saying that the Kansas City Monarchs team would have had no problem beating the Browns, which I'm sure was right. The Browns were fucking terrible. Now prior to the 47-48 Cuban Winter League season, they wanted to, his Cuban team wanted to get him again. They wanted Hank again.

But another team signed him to be their starting third baseman here. So that was good for him. Now there's two competing leagues in Cuba I guess. First was the original Cuban Winter League and the other was known as the Players Federation. So I guess they had they were they were competing for the best players so you had salaries going up and up and up is how that worked down there. So you make some good money. He hit 318 down there. Very good. He's 51 runs batted in, led the league. Great. So not too shabby. Not just getting on base but getting people in too. Yeah, getting guys in there. Then he goes on down to Venezuela again and finished third in the league standings down there. 48 is back up with Kansas City going 67-34-3 first in the American League down there but lost the championship series to the Birmingham Black Barons. So yes, this

is under manager Buck O'Neill now by the way, he took over as manager. I don't know if he's still playing. So he's still playing. Is that the team that Jordan played for No, no, no, no, he played. No, he played for Birmingham the minor league White Sox team This is the but aren't they called the Birmingham Red Barons or not the black Barons? That was the Negro League black Barons I mean black Barons. I don't think they're the black Barons. I thought they weren't they Birmingham Bulls or some shit I don't I thought it was I thought it was a bit. I thought I said Barons across this fuck Oh, maybe they said Bull. It might it might be the Birmingham Barons as a nod to the tribute to it right to black Barons. Yeah yeah definitely that's a possibility for sure. Yeah so Hank is sometimes credited

with leading the Negro League that year with 20 stolen bases but other references say Sam Jethro had more. They didn't keep great stats in that league. That was one thing. That was not great. So if 1948, yeah, he plays in 47 games, which is that's as many as you could play that year. He had 175 at bats, hit 337. Nice.

Not too sure. Oh, was that the playoffs? No, that's that year. Okay. Yeah. Playoffs. Play Playoffs he hit 231. Okay. In 1948, the Dodgers and Indians had been the only two teams to employ black players at the major league level that year.

But other teams are starting to see that Larry Doby and fucking Jackie Robinson are good ball players. I mean. They're working out, yeah. And they draw a fucking crowd too. You know, it's the other thing. So now you're getting more black people buying tickets too, which I mean, if you're an owner and a business person, the only color you should give a fuck about is green.

That's it. And yeah. Then on April 4th, 1948. So right as the season is starting, he is at the cusp of being a major leaguer again and doing all this type of thing. There's a problem. Well, kind of a big problem. Let's see, Dallas, Texas this happened in.

Hell yeah. I'll just read the newspaper article. Henry Hank Thompson, 23-year-old ex-St. Louis Brown's infielder, is held under arrest here in connection with the slaying Saturday night of Fenley Crowe. What? Thompson allegedly shot Crow, an itinerant laborer, in the stomach following an argument in a Fleming Street tavern. The victim was shot nine times. Imagine that.

He shot him nine fucking times. Not once. At 23 years old, he's firing nine rounds into a man. In a bar. That's so many rounds. You rounds into him. That's a whole... In a bar. That's so many rounds. So many. You either reload it or that's a magazine. That is fucking wild.

Apparently the trouble arose, reportedly, when Crowe interceded in an argument between Thompson and Thompson's sister Helen. What are you interceding in an argument between brother and sister? Yeah, you have no part of that. Then they both turn on you. That's how that works.

You ever been involved in that? Hank recently returned from Havana, Cuba, where he played the Winter League Baseball. He's currently under contract to the Kansas City Monarch. So that's not great at all. Now right under this though is something that you could maybe use. Everybody out there. The ads, Jimmy the Sales. Hell yeah, let's see it.

From 1948. Hide away gray hair with slick black. Okay. Let me show you the ad. Have we talked about slick black before? I don't think we have. Look at the ad. Oh, I don't like that.

No. That is incredibly Yes, man that exactly what you just said sorry It is like a pencil sketch of a black guy with half his hair Literally could see light reflecting in it. It's like so slick. It's like mannequin hair and then the other half is like wavy and not black. And it says, look, it comes in like a shoe polish thing. Yeah, and one side is Clark Gable,

and the other side is like a greying, low Afro of Richard Pryor. Which one would you rate? I was gonna say somebody we know is actually what it reminded me of. Say him, fuck. I don't want to give that guy a fucking plug. A guy who ran bad comedy shows with 40 comics at them.

You know exactly who I'm talking about. Looks just like him. Looks just like him and paid off in pizza. That's the guy. And then share a picture of him. Yeah there you go everybody Touch this that those gross fucks touched There have that, it's disgusting people

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They're thoroughly investigated accounts that reveal the uncomfortable truths still shaping our world today. The stories are real. The secrets are shocking. Follow redacted declassified mysteries with me, Luke Lamanna on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts to listen ad free join Wondery plus in the Wondery app. So large box though, only 50 cents. So black hair on that. Yeah. 50 cents for all that.

Yeah. Chemical. Whatever the fuck that is. Oh my God. So apparently the problem here, the story comes out a little more later. He was on his way from Kansas City from their spring training base in San Antonio where he stopped to visit his older sister Margaret and her husband.

They went out to a local beer garden, they encountered Crowe, who was nicknamed Buddy. Hank had played sandlot ball with Crowe and knew him for years. That's the thing. He knows the fucking guy. He knew he said he knew Crowe to be a dangerous guy. So he said Crowe threatened him with a knife. That's what happened. He said he threatened me with a knife. So he said he shot him three times across the chest with a 32 caliber automatic that he was in the habit of

carrying. Sure. But the Dallas Morning Star and the Sporting News reported that Crow had been shot six times. The the paper we just read was the Afro-American. That said he was shot nine times, and Hank said he shot him three times. So I have no fucking idea how many times this guy was shot. Does this place just take two stories and start adding numbers to guess what? I don't know.

He's probably shot fucking nine times. Back then, just legends grew, who knows? So Hank left the bar not knowing if Crowe had survived and just went and turned himself in the next morning when he found out he died. Wow. So yeah, he was charged with murder, but his lawyer argued that the case was self-defense. So he was released on $5,000 bond and went on to San Antonio. He shot a guy at least somewhere between three and nine times

And they sent him on his way. We'll deal with this later Yeah, so he pleaded not guilty and was released on bond lucky for him in a couple years We'll be playing for the New York Giants who have a lot of poll and they get him out of this Yeah, is that right? Yeah, they pull as soon as he signed with the Giants pretty much The police ruled the incident self-defense and dismissed it crows killing goes Unjust well justified again. I mean, yeah, who knows if he pulled a knife So according to those who knew Hank very well

They said this kind of fucked up his psyche a little bit here Or they said his demeanor changed and he was said to have been a different man Which is interesting because he was in a machine gunner in World War II. So he's killed many men. But this is up close and personal. When your government tells you to go do it, it's got to feel, you got to be able to detach from that, right? Well, it's like Sonny Corleone telling Michael, this isn't fucking war where you take a rifle

and shoot a guy from far away. You got to walk right up behind him and fucking pow. It's one of those things. It's very fucking personal here. He said in 1965, he was quoted as saying, 17 years later and I still haven't gotten over it. I believe it. So yeah, if you're a decent person,

I would think that would be normal for you. Yeah, so in the Negro Leagues, he played 172 games and compiled a 344 batting average, which is not too shabby considering he wasn't even playing baseball for two years he was goddamn military so he said he was rusty when he first came back here so in the winter of 48 he goes back to Cuba for a third straight year why not go hang out down there he played a 72 game season down there again. Keep sharp and do all that kind of thing He led the league in runs hits triples and slugging percentage

Those are great count columns to be in those are all real good ones that hit 321 as well. So wow Goddamn great. So yeah, he keeps playing and keeps coming back to Cuba and they just just fucking love him down there, because he rips it up down there. Then, before the 1949 season, he's signed as a free agent with the New York Giants, which was a big deal, and they'll have Willie Mays, and I believe next year, I think they get Willie Mays, and 50, I think they get him. So, that's pretty goddamn cool.

The Giants announced they signed Hank Thompson and Newark Eagles veteran star Monte Ervin, who's a great basestealer and great ball player, and also Monarchs pitcher Ford Smith to play for their Jersey City minor league club. And Thompson reportedly negotiated a $2,500 bonus for a sign-up. Fantastic. Which is big money back then. So pretty goddamn awesome they start all three of these guys start with the Jersey City Giants and Thompson and

Irvin fucking ripped up the league hitting wise really did well Irvin was the bigger name but and a better player than Thompson down there but Thompson hit 296 with 14 homers and a 447 on base percentage which is terrific. 565 slugging in 68 games real good. So they both him and Irvin were called up to the Giants in July and Hank bounces between shortstop and left field with Jersey shitty Jersey shitty shitty. Jersey shitty. Jersey shitty. Took over the Giants regular second base job. This guy would love to get his position,

I would imagine that he could just concentrate on. Permanency, yeah, residency somewhere. Fuck, he hit 280 and had nine homers in 75 games. So, not too shabby. He was hitting lead off at first, but then was moved to the third spot in the order late in the season when he got his shit together. Giants went 73, 81 and 2 that year.

Holy shit, Leo DeRosier was their manager. Leo DeRosier is a psychopath. He is Billy Martin before Billy Martin. Oh, terrific. Fighting and shit. He's a crazy person. Yeah, who else is on this team? Yeah, Monte Irvin, who's a Hall of Famer.

Johnny Mize, who's a great player. It was a Hall of Famer Johnny Mize. It was a great player He was on he was a Hall of Famer on that team You know a few of those guys if you're an old-school baseball fan here on hey on June 1st of that year He was hit in the head by a ball a pitch ball. Yeah, and this is pre helmets, right? This is baseball caps on the fucking head. Yeah. Yeah, you're imagine if it hit the little ball thing on top of the hat I'd be oh You hit your head on our car ceiling and with one of those it's oh god. Jesus. It drove into my brain Put your finger see if you can touch brain

Use your pinky see if you can feel anything. Just move it around a bit. So he spent a couple days in St. Francis Hospital and he's going to be, this kind of starts the trend of him being injured a lot. And yeah, often spending, being on the disabled list a lot here. Yeah, that was just life then. Like as you age, like you could have, you could point to all kinds of parts of your body that had events And tell a story. Well, this is when that happened

Yeah, this is when the thresher got me when I was back on the farm This is where an 88 mile per hour fastball hole punched my head So June 9th the eight days after he's beened in the fucking head there, he is going to get married. Okay. He lost his fucking head for sure. He sure did. He's super scrambled.

He's making bad decisions. Wow. He's like, I'm going to marry a Cuban broad. Who he does? I'll marry anybody. I'll marry whoever. I'm a Cuban man. I don't give a shit.

Whatever. I don't know what she's got under there. He married Maria Caseda in Brooklyn. He met her in Cuba while playing winter ball sure, which is nice Real John Henry Ford who was a teammate served as best man at the wedding down in Jersey City He's one of his teammates down there On the 23rd of June though He has another serious injury when he hurts his ankle against in a game against the Buffalo Bisons and the miners down there

that'll keep him out of the lineup for a while. And yeah, he's got a lot of injury problems. July 1st, 49, though, he has called up both him and Monte Ervin to join the Giants on the 4th of July. Hell yeah. I think that's some symbolic shit they're trying to do there. On July 8th, both Thompson and Ervin integrated the New York Giants. They actually played. They actually to do there. On July 8th both Thompson and Irvin integrated the New York Giants. They actually played. They actually got out there.

Thompson was the starting third baseman and Monte Irvin pinch hit in the eighth inning for them and Hanks contract called for him to make $7,500 which the league minimum was five grand so he's making real ballplayer money. A little bit more. Yeah he's doing He's making real ball player money a little bit more. Yeah, he's doing great. Uh, montee ervin's gonna become the second baseman According to an interview with montee ervin about adjusting to life in the major leagues He said him and thompson had to adjust to three things in order to be successful Here we go. He said get rid get rid of what he called athletic rust I guess playing sparingly. Getting used to not being the

top player on the team because when he or he came from he's a top player and learning quote organized baseball's way of doing things or as Irvin put it needed to get comfortable with life in major league baseball. And that's not really on the field that's more off the field. Baseball nowadays it doesn't really exist anymore, but for decades, etiquette, weird little clubhouse rules that are unwritten were like such a huge thing. If you read Jim Boughton Ball 4, it's like, fuck man, you'd need a handbook three inches thick to figure out all the little rules here. Right. It's almost like the players that unwrote them had some sort of like ailment. You know what I mean? Like if you come in the door, you got to open it three times before

you walk in. Shit like that. They're like weird quirks. They're almost quirks, but they're just to fuck with people. Yeah, exactly. It's just to fuck with people. Yeah. So playing at the polo grounds was easier than when he was with st Louis he said st. Louis is really hard. The polo grounds are basically right next to Harlem. They're right there Yeah, Harlem's right by there. So he said there was a black area. So he said that was easier and And Willie Mays said the same thing. There's tons of pictures of Willie Mays playing stickball with the kids in Harlem all the time He used to just go and play stickball with the kids. That's awesome.

Yeah. So in addition, the Giants were managed by Leo DeRosier, who I guess he had been instrumental in getting Jackie Robinson up with the Dodgers. So he doesn't give a shit. He wants to win Leo DeRosier. Doesn't care what fucking color you are. Winning is important here. Also, he said it helped having Monte Ervin as his teammate. He said Monte was 30 years old and more mature, and so he said whenever Hank got out of line, the other players said Monte was there to get on his case. Yeah.

He was like a sign to him watching. A mature guy that just like, who gives a shit about this little petty thing? Yeah. Don't worry about it. Nobody cares. Yeah, because he's still only 24. I mean, still a young guy. You're not changing the world, stop it.

Absolutely, and also Hank basically had a reputation as kind of a tough guy. He just killed a man within a year. Yeah, he's probably, that's a legit killer. Yeah, and he's been in the war, so I mean, they have respect for him as a person, basically. It was common knowledge that he carried a gun all the time and he had just killed a man within the last year. Yeah, down in Texas in the wild west.

So they said teammates basically gave him like space, especially when he'd been drinking, they give him a little bit of a buffer. Yep, a wide berth. According to Monte Ervin, once the two showed up, showed that they could help the team, especially then Willie Mays joined in 1951 and it was like, yeah, these guys are good. He said that once we put that uniform on, it wasn't between black and white, it was the Giants against the Dodgers. The name of the team on the front of your uniform mattered more than the color of your skin because they were put right in the middle of a big rivalry.

So fans, they could be like, I don't want black guys playing. Guess what? When you hit a game winning home run against the Dodgers, they don't give a fuck what you are. They love you now. Yeah. They don't go, ah, fuck him. I wanted the Dodgers to win. If our guy's going to hit it, that's not how it works. And there is, there is something to that when they, when they don't put the name on the back of the Jersey, because that's not the name that matters or some shit like that. Yeah. I love that. I love when it's just, and it forces like, The Yankees still don't have their names on the jerseys. Yeah, right. It's fucking awesome. That's the point.

That's an interesting thing. Yeah. Because the name that matters is on the front. They know what team you're on. That's what matters. But in marketing. That matters. That's what the problem is. Yeah. It's a marketing thing there. Yeah. The marketing matters too because people are burning a lot of a lot of Jerseys today because Soto left the Yankees and yeah, they're burning Clemens jerseys

That's I'm saying it's not your jersey man. No, I had a Jason Giambi jersey He left it became a mark to share a jersey terrific Great He left it became a mark to share a jersey terrific Actually better marketing to me you had a Chuck Knoblock Jersey, and it became a Brett Gardner Jersey even better. It's fucking awesome Your Robert Ory Jersey doesn't matter Somebody else's Jersey next year when he leaves to go the next team to break somebody else's art used to clean up spills now. That's what that is. Yeah, right. I have a fucking, a walker jersey.

I forget his first name. Ah, god damn it. Antoine? Doesn't matter. What is it? Antoine? No, no, no, from the Broncos. He was a receiver, he played for the Raiders,

and then went to the Broncos, and then he went some, and then I think he, did he get shot? I don't remember. He got robbed in Vegas, I do know that. Oh, okay. But he left Denver, and now I've still got this fucking jersey sent to my closet from 2004. That's a tough one, man.

Yeah, football better be like a Hall of Famer that's gonna be evergreen or else you're fucked. I've got an L-Way you can always wear that. I'm ripping the nameplate off. I've always had the plan to rip the nameplate off it and just put a Shannon Sharp name on it because it's Shannon Sharp's fucking number there's no reason they should ever let anybody wear that number. That's fucking yeah well football if they retire too many numbers they're gonna run out. There's 50-something guys on the team. You only get a few for each position. Yeah the Yankees gotta start worrying about that even with the baseball team it's like there's like 26 numbers retired now can

we at some point we gotta stop. Well yeah fucking 76 76 more Jesus Christ and all of them from like 1 to 20 there's like three numbers left I think so when they arrived these the black players Leo de Rocher said that he had a day he had a meeting that day yeah and said quote this is all I'm gonna say about race I don't give a damn what color you are as long as you play good baseball you play on this team we got Monty and Hank here they got good credentials I'm sure they'll help us get out of fifth place we're all one team and that was it and Leo de Rocher was the type of guy nobody challenged Leo de Rocher he would attack you physically like the number of stories of him attacking

Players of his own in the fucking clubhouse is remarkable He will attack you with a fucking bat so Yeah, he did well though We had a few games going on three for five two for four four for five one game with two singles a double Home-run did great. I mean he was doing pretty good that year. He hit 280 altogether. It's not bad, yeah. It's great. And 275 at bat, so fuck, not bad.

You can't ask for a lot more than that. In 1950, they held their spring training in Phoenix, the Giants. Oh, really? And then stayed there, yeah. And now they haven't left. They have never left. And they said living conditions in Phoenix were better for Thompson and Irvin than when they were in Florida. Phoenix was nothing really also.

Dry and wide the fuck open. You could get in so much trouble and nobody will fucking know. Well also in Florida you weren't, they still had segregated stuff in Florida. Shit was segregated. It's the south in Florida whereas in Arizona it's the west. Nobody cares what you do. And the 50s may as well have been 1850 because nothing populated Arizona until the goddamn 70s. Totally.

And even then it was small. Right. So like Thompson and Irvin were allowed to stay in the same hotel as the rest of the team in Phoenix. So they liked that, you know, in Florida, they weren't allowed to, which is fucking crazy. This is when the Giants shifted Thompson to third base here because Eddie Stanky was playing second. Old Stanky. Old Stankster here. March 15th, 1950 there's a

big article Thompson's arm passes first test with Giants. It says Hank Thompson leaned against the batting cage, his white teeth gleaming in the Arizona sunlight. It's no wonder he was grinly, grinly, broadening, grinning broadly, grinning, grinning, broadening. The Giants had been at work for five days and Hank had yet to feel the slightest trace of the miseries in his arm that almost ruined his freshman season a year ago. So his arm is cured basically. Yeah. Yeah said that he's confident, he's ready to go. He's gonna get over how ivory those teeth look in a black face.

Yeah, black face, white teeth, bright sunlight. God damn man, we get it, he's a black guy, take it easy. Oh shit, he said I've thrown hard and often in the last few days and I haven't had a bit of pain yet. Oh there was some stiffness and I've had it in the whirlpool bath a couple of times but that's only natural after a winter of inactivity. He said I was some worried when I boarded the giant train at Kansas City en route to Phoenix because I hadn't thrown a ball since the last day of the 1949 season at Boston and I had no idea if I was alright again.

Now I'm 90% sold on the belief that it's sound and strong again. I've been making these long throws across the diamond and it hasn't bothered me yet." So very good. So yeah, he's playing third base and Leo DeRoscher said, why? He's better at third than he was at second. There's a reason for it too. At second he was inclined to let the ball play him at times You could see him backing up now and then but at third you can't afford to do that He charges those balls like a cat and he has a sure pair of hands

What's more he's been throwing better than he ever did last year So very good. So Leo de Rocher likes you. You're fucking golden sure So word about his teeth. That was nice Leo. Yeah, he's like I said his teeth I don't care about him at all Thompson's hitting cleanup too here, okay, which isn't too shabby And if he has I got an idea for of his arm feels okay, but what if he has a hernia Jimmy? What's he gonna do then? Okay, but what if he has a hernia Jimmy? What's he gonna do then?

Wow, you got a cure-all James. He's gonna go visit this guy. Oh, yeah, it's like a Phoenix HB Sykes To neglect your hernia or rupture is far worse than driving on a flat tire tires can be replaced But your body cannot that's true. If you keep working on the on a hernia That thing's just gonna rip further and that's it aliens gonna keep working on the on a hernia that thing's just gonna rip further and that's it aliens gonna keep coming out of your chest he said common-sense demands you give your hernia or rupture immediate attention procrastination often leads to strangulation oh yeah yeah wait too long if you like sit and it tries to heal it'll choke off the guts that are sticking out of that hole It's fucked up man. Her knees are terrible. That's an awful thing. It's really gross. It's been happening for years though

Yeah, my grandpa had two at the same time. Yeah, I had a grandpa had one too all the time. Yeah, what is up with that? Well, they were doing labor. What is that? They were always doing labor, that's why. Yeah, he was a welder, he was busy. My grandfather barbered six days a week, fucking 12 hours more a day and then he'd be off on his one day and he'd just do yard work. I think he just hated my grandmother so they didn't get along. So he was just like, I'll be outside drinking scotch in the garage and then raking the leaves because that's pretty much what he did. I'll be outside getting a hernia. Yeah, I'll be outside. It's preferable to you. Bye.

He said, let us prove what we can do for you. 30 day trial, refund in full if not satisfied. Sykes Hernia Control Service. What is his service? Is it a fucking surgery? It's not a surgery. It's not fixing anything. A 30 day trial doesn't... No, that's... Surgery, it's one a surgery. It's not fixing anything. A 30 day trial doesn't, no, surgery it's one and done. My friend, you have to tuck that shit in and stitch it shut. That's the problem. A post not gonna do it.

Right under that, Help Wanted, boys in all capital letters. Oh no. To sell popsicles from carts. I don't like this. All the ads back then too, like in the old TV guides, it would be like, boys, start your own business, sell TV guides. Boys, deliver newspapers. Like girls-

Come over, I'll show you how it's done. Girls, you're too fragile to throw a newspaper on someone's porch, basically. That ad feels very white van, you know what I mean? Yes. Boys, come- To sell popsicles from carts. Do you like popsicles? Hey kids, suck on this popsicle for me, would ya? Hey Chris, I got some popsicles.

$4 per day, Chris. $4 per day guaranteed, health certificates require. Apply in person. Jesus. Health certificates, I need you healthy too? I don't like this at all. This is creepy. Well, I think that's a, so you know how to, I think that's from the city, like a license to sell food type of thing.

Yeah, but it sounds like I need you to not have herpes when you get in my van. Please no open source, please. In the field this year, by the way, Hank Thompson participated in 43 double plays and 138 appearances at third base Breaking pie trainers 25 year old National League record for double plays by a third base So that record stood until 1974 when Darrell Evans broke it with 45 so not too shabby 1950 New York Giants 86 and 68 for a third of the National League So they did get him out of out of fifth place not too shabby here And yeah, he does good. He has a good he's as good speed Thompson. They're talking about

Here he hit two inside the park home runs in the same game one game great Which in the polo grounds isn't that hard to do? No, I don't know if you've ever seen the dimensions of the polo grounds isn't that hard to do. No. I don't know if you've ever seen the dimensions of the polo grounds but it's a giant. It's a giant oval. So try and put a baseball field in an oval. How do you do it? You can't do that. Well maybe you do it long ways. So the it was like two to 90 down the lines or something to even less than that maybe like right down the lines. It was super two to ninety down the lines or something to even less than that Maybe like right down the lines. It was super shallow, but it was like

520 feet to centerfield literally that that catch Do you always see the Willie Mays running and catching it just over his shoulder as it goes? that was like a 500 foot ball like that ball was a Monster home run. I mean, he would have hit that. The guy would have thrown his bat down and walked up the first baseline looking at it. And back then you better run your fucking ass off because that ain't a home run. And Willie's fast. And Willie's fast as fuck. He's getting to that ball. That's a lot of the home run numbers back then. You look at them and they're like, they're actually huge

for how big some of these parks were Yankee Stadium used to be 495 to the power alley to the power alley What is 399 now? I believe was fucking an extra hundred feet. Basically. It was crazy So Joe DiMaggio hit a lot of 450 foot outs That should have been fucking home runs or doubles that could have been home runs Dodger Stadium is so small It's yeah, they built that. So small. That became the style after that.

None of those crazy dimensions because they wanted home runs because that's what people wanted to see to buy tickets. And in a field like that, you can hit it out of the park. Like Barry was doing it all the time in San Francisco. When you hit it out of the park, that's like such an amazing thing to see. But it's really, it's not that, it's certainly impressive and very hard, it's impossible to fucking do.

But it's not as impossible as this shit. No, fuck no. 1951 Giants, 98 and 59, they are in first place, this is with Willie Mays on there, they go all the way to the World Series, which they lose in six games to the Yankees. So this is the fucking 52. They had still at 51. This is I believe Mantles rookie year and Joe DiMaggio is still there. So a lot of a lot of players there. Not too shabby. Yeah, they he did great. He was, you know,

Hank Thompson didn't have a great year though that year, which is interesting. Yeah, didn't have a terrific year. He got off to a bad start by June 4th, though he got his average up to about 278 and had seven home runs, which was the second highest total on the club. But by July 18th, his average was down to 239 and he only had one homer since June 4th. So a huge midseason slump, big time here. He was spiked by Frank Hiller of Chicago and knocked out of action one year.

Son of a bitch. The next afternoon, outfielder Bobby Thompson, who'd lost a center field job to Willie Mays almost two years earlier, was installed at third base. A few years later, it was announced base. A few years later it was announced or a few days later it was announced that Thompson had been optioned down to the Giants AAA club here. Bobby Thompson by the way, not Hank Thompson, Bobby Thompson was the guy who hit the home run the shot heard around the world.

That's that guy. I get to beat the Dodgers to go to the World Series. So that's pretty interesting. Hank went to ended up in Minneapolis for their farm team where he ripped it up down there. He hit 340 with a 1209 OPS, which is huge. He was ripping shit apart. So the Giants, Hank returned to his place on the bench behind Bobby Thompson, though he went to the Giants back up there and Hank, they put him on the bench and they let Bobby Thompson finish playing third that year because he wasn't. And so yeah, that's the shot heard around the world happens and all that shit.

That's a big deal here. So Hank Thompson joined the Roy Campanella's All Stars after the regular 1951 season to do barnstorming. They did, they all did this every year. Tons of barnstorming and goddamn major league players on that team. Roy Campanella, Larry Doby, Luke Easter, Monty Irvin, Willie Mays, Don Newcomb, Harry Simpson, Hank Thompson. That's big shit. There's a lot of great players on that team. 52 the Giants, 92 and 62. Okay. So second place that year not quite there but almost almost there. He finishes by the way the 51 season he finished with a 235

average Hank Thompson and only eight home runs in 87 games. So having a hard time there I would say. Left fielder Monty Irvin who was the national reigning National League RBI king broke his leg before the start of the 52 season. So that's not terrific I would say. They end up moving Hank back to third base for the last third of the 52 season here. He started 51 games in center field, 43 at third, 17 in left and he also filled in at second base and right field Hank Thompson so that's tough man that's gonna be tough to concentrate certainly not easy if you're doing that shit so 1952 the year he hit 260 that year so a little bit better again he goes on the barnstorming tour same same guys here Willie Mays had to

join the army for a while here by the way yeah yeah guys here. Willie Mays had to join the army for a while here, by the way Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Willie Mays in the army job for Hank Aaron was in the army in the 50s Yeah, Korea. No. Oh, yeah I'm gonna go to Korea Mickey Mantle got out of it cuz he tore his fucking knee apart He was too fucking injured to go to the army. Yeah he apart. He was too fucking injured to go to the army. Yeah. He, Mickey Mantle, by the way, had the still to this day, fastest time from the box to first base that's ever existed before he hurt his knee. Yeah. He was that fast. No, I didn't. Blew his knee out in a

drainage ditch in a right center field there. And the Yankees chasing a ball. Yankee stadium used to have big drainage ditches and he fucking stepped in one and exploded his knee and never was the same again fast wise, speed wise. So 1953, 70 and 84 the Giants are. Not good, that's what happens when Willie Mays is in the army. That's a tough one and Thompson spent a lot of the time on the bench here Gets back in the lineup mid-may. They had a rookie that they thought was gonna be hot shit It turns out it wasn't he wasn't hot shit, but Hank was hot shit this year

He hit 302 with 24 homers a career high. That's a huge. Yeah, he's killing it fucking not bad at all And this is in only 454 plate appearances 388 official at bats. He had 24 homers. That's fucking good stuff, man February 54 here 19 to 54 February about 4 a.m. In the morning one day Yeah, as if as if 4 a.m. Could be any other time but the morning He became involved with an argument with a Harlem cab

driver and ended up with 14 stitches in his head. Oh, the cab driver won. Absolutely, but Hank was charged with felonious assault with this. So apparently he tried to get into it with the cab driver who was a little tougher apparently. Those old timey New York City cab drivers were not to be trifled with. Those guys were tough, man. They drive in New York for tricep. They used to literally fist fight in traffic every day, those guys.

They were bad motherfuckers. So the case was later dismissed against him. So now he's got a murder and an assault already dismissed, so not too shabby. 1954, 97 and 57 the Giants are and they win the World Series they sweep over the Cleveland Indians. Last time they'll make it until 95. That was what the mean owner in Major League was referencing the last time they won. That's what they were doing here. I'm looking on this team. Monte Irvin, who is an all star every year in a hall of fame or he made 25 grand that year. Looks like he's the highest paid player. Hoit Wilhelm,

who's a hall of fame knuckleball pitcher made $15,000 that year. Willie Mays 12,500 that year. Really? That's all he made. Yep. He made no goddamn money, did he? No, no, he made shit. No, he made no money. That's too bad. Absolutely not. Nope, that's why Willie's been hanging around

fucking baseball ever since. I mean, I'm sure he loves it, but he also needs a paycheck. Yeah, I think he died last year, right? He did, yeah, yeah. He worked for the Giants forever. I mean, he's an ambassador to the sport anyway. He's beloved, yeah.

Fucking Willie Mays. Who doesn't like Willie Mays? Nobody says a bad thing about say hey, sport anyway. He's beloved. Fucking Willie Mays. Who doesn't like Willie Mays? Nobody says a bad thing about say hey. Come on. If you don't like Willie Mays, you just don't like things. You don't like anything. You're a miserable cunt. Yeah. How could you not like a guy who joyously plays baseball with a big smile on his face and does great and likes everybody? How do you hate that guy? Never heard a bad story about that guy. No fucking shit man.

Thompson had a great day, his best day as a major leaguer on June 3rd of 54 here, playing in St. Louis. He homered his first three times at bat and then they intentionally walked him in the seventh inning with no outs and a man on second. He hit three in one day, one game. Yeah, three in a row, which is great. And then he had another chance up at the plate, but he drove in, he instead singled

and drove in his eighth run of the game. Four for five, god damn, with three homers? Not too bad. Yeah, not too fucking bad here. He hit 364 in the World Series and drew seven base on balls. Awesome. So just killed it that year. He only hit 263 in the regular season, but 26 home runs for his career high.

Not too shabby at all, and they won the World Series. So now he's got a ring back on the Campanella All-Stars that year. He does another barnstorming tour, so you got to make that dough man 1955 80 and 74 they finished third in the National League under de rocher here and This year. He's only 29 years old. He seems like he's a hundred right no kidding. He's fought in wars He's shot a guy. He's got all this shit going on had a more exciting life than Jesus so far totally But this year he kind of has a drop. He hits 245, only 17 home runs.

Not quite the same pop and impact that he had in the last couple seasons here. He joined the Willie Mays All Stars for their part in the postseason barnstorming tour. And yeah, they only had 17 players on that roster so that's a not a lot of players here during the during the tour the team was referred to in the media by the Willie Mays all-stars the Major League all-stars the Mays and Newcomb all-stars and the Negro Major League all-stars they said it got fucking limited newspaper coverage for some reason. Wow.

I don't understand why. That's very weird. That feels like a conspiracy. It's very strange, man. I don't understand it. One of his games on the tour, he went three for four with two home runs. So very good. He made $18,000 that year, 1955.

Hell yeah. Fuck the newspapers. I got to use the grand. No, no. I don't mean for the barnstorming. His Major League salary was $18,000 that year, 1955. Hell yeah, fuck the newspapers, I got to use the brand. No, no, I don't mean for the barnstorming, his major league salary was $18,000. Yeah. 1956 Giants, 67 and 87, Leo DeRosier's gone, Bill Rigney is there now, or Rigney,

and they finish in sixth place, so not good. Oh, and they're dead last in attendance as well. Ouch. This is why the Giants moved. Yeah. Because this, I believe this is their last season in New York, if I'm not mistaken. Well they've got so many goddamn teams up there. Yeah. And then the Polo grounds was a huge falling apart hunk of shit as well.

Yeah. And it was in a not the greatest neighborhood and all that kind of thing. So it became difficult. And LA just looked, or San Francisco looked so looked so pristine compared to this. I mean, yeah, exactly. It's exactly what it was here. So Hank Thompson started the 56 season, they said, with renewed optimism, he got a new contract paying him 18,500 for the season. And he was very confident here, but he played well in the early part of spring training and then injured his shoulder and lost his starting job at

third base to a rookie and not too great. Now he actually did in five exhibition games the ones we have box scores for he went seven for twelve with two home runs in the spring so he was doing fine until he hurt his shoulder. And then it was not good after that. June 7th, 56 Hank Thompson is hit in the head again by a Cardinals pitcher. Oh no. Again. This is in the fourth inning in a game with St. Louis because I think they hit him the first time, didn't they? Yeah.

Yeah. He was carried from the field on a stretcher and taken to a hospital Here that bad Wow Called the Cardinal Club physician said he believed Thompson suffered a concussion. He was hit in the head by Tom Paholski So he was taken off and transported to the hospital He did not have a fractured skull, but he would suffer from recurring severe headaches for several weeks He had a good concussion. Yeah. He had a quarterback concussion.

The official diagnosis was a severe concussion. He tried to play the next day. Was taken out of the lineup because he complained of being super dizzy out in the field, he couldn't manage it. You've got a fucking head injury, man. Fuck, on June 15th he was flown from Cincinnati back to New York City for further tests and evaluation.

During the next several weeks he's in and out of several different hospitals on all sorts of different occasions. The longest of these stays was in June when he was hospitalized, so he doesn't return to the starting lineup until July 7th. And apparently at that point he still wasn't doing great. He was plagued by still head and head stuff.

And also he hasn't been doing anything because he's been in the hospital. So he's in poor physical shape too at this point. He's not in playing shape either. So having a hard time. So once the season had concluded, Willie Mays put another all-star team together they put him on it to do the barnstorming here so he does that they

play 32 barnstorming games and they said they went to mid-size cities like Jacksonville because there was less competition for the entertainment dollar right which makes a lot of sense so So anyway, 1957 as it started it looked like Thompson didn't really fit into the plans for the future. He missed an exhibition game against Cleveland and San Diego. He just didn't show up. Really? Just didn't show up which that's you can't do that. So the manager fined him $150. When asked about losing his starting job at third base and even possibly not making the Major League roster Thompson was

quoted in the media saying quote every time they shuffle the deck they lose me somewhere I don't know what it is but rig has never given me much attention we're the best of friends but he doesn't seem to like me as a ballplayer meaning the manager so he ends up being sold to the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association in April of 1957 before the start of the regular season. So that is, the last time he went to Minneapolis, he was there for like a couple weeks,

tore it up and they brought him right back. But didn't quite work out that way here. He appears in 78 games there and for them he only hits 243 yikes and then leaves the team in late July in mid-july sorry in interviews he said he remembered his playing days on that note but he did fact oh he did in fact try to resurrect his career later on as we'll talk about too. But July 17th, 1957, he officially retires. Retires from baseball. His average had gone down for the fourth straight year.

He said he knew it was his time. He said, the game has been good to me, but it's a young man's game. I'm going home to California. What? I guess California's home now. That's, okay. Well, I guess if the Giants moved there and he moved 57, I don't know, because he didn't really go there. Maybe he would just

live there. I guess if you had the money and it was a, that was a nice place to live back then too. And it was cheap then. Fuck yeah. It was fucking cheap and not a bad place to go. So he's going home to California here. He was only 31 years old. So he should have had more seasons ahead of him. He said his legs hurt though. He had leg problems. He said, they said, what happened to your legs? He said, quote, they just went bad. Like milk. His legs went too much. Yeah, this is what bad man. They spoiled. Really. They'd

been bad for a long time. It was a ligament trouble. He said in Greensboro, North Carolina, I needed to have novocaine shots to play before games. I lived in the whirlpool. It was almost like my bed. Fuck. Yeah. There's a blurb in the Boston American about him coming back in July and January 30th of 58 where they talked about but apparently it was just talks and it never happened. So in an attempt to get back into the game he heads down to Puerto Rico to play for the

Ponce Leones for the 57-58 Winter League. He only played in three games before they released him. That was that. He went back to the US and his baseball career is fucking over It is over so after he retired he then started taking menial jobs because there's no way he's saved anything No, and he never went to school So he has no education, but this is before the time when this is right before the time when at least a known retired Major leaguer could do some like appearances. This is before card shows and con, you know, cons and everything like that. This is a time that like you could have no education and if you're good at something,

you can still make a damn good living. You can be a salesman and do great. Fuck man, if you can weld anything, take anything apart and put it back together better, you can make money. But he didn't really have any formal education or job skills because he just played baseball so he never had job skills. He never had a job. He was an alcoholic 17 year old.

Yeah, so he said his income went from $36,000 a year when he was playing in baseball with the barnstorming and the regular salary to less than $5,000 a year when he retired. He said quote that when you make big money, you spend big and I did. So he just said he didn't save any of his money. According to Hank, immediately after he retired, he was offered a job by the New York Giants as a part-time bird dog scout, but he turned it down.

Idiot. Idiot. Now, maybe he wanted to get away from baseball. The life of a bird dog scout is tough too. It's not good. Yeah. You're not even the scout. You're the guy who tells the scout about a guy.

So you're running around on trains going, head on down here, there's a guy down there. Yeah. You're just driving from little town to little town to watch high school baseball games, church league games, sandlot games. Anywhere you heard a guy is a good player, you're going to go try to find that. And then that was probably, you probably saw some competition and such. I saw a commercial on TV the other night for the best in Arizona high school football.

I was like, how do you, how dare you advertise that as your programming for your channel? That's programming? You're telling us don't watch? What are you doing? Who the fuck is watching that? I hope not anybody. I, that's programming. You're telling us don't watch? What are you doing? Who the fuck's watching that? I hope not anybody. I can't watch that. It's hard to watch good football, bad football.

I'm not watching high school football. Nothing more unwatchable than bad football. No, so bad. So he worked as a taxi driver in New York City. I would much rather be a scout. I don't know man, that guy maybe told him, you know what I mean, he got his ass kicked by one. Maybe would much rather be a scout. I don't know man that guy maybe told him you know I mean he got his ass kicked by one maybe that's a tough job. Wow he umped some baseball games he said he would just drift from job to job he

just couldn't find anything that stuck. This is between bouts of having no job. This is a 30 year old man. 31. Yeah 31, 32. When he was unemployed he would tell people he was in public relations so they would just not ask any more questions. That's a confusing and vague answer. He worked for a short time as a delivery person at one point, delivered shit, he sold cars, he did anything he could. He said bartending was the job he'd go back to more than others.

The man knows booze. Because I can sample a few in between. One for you, one for me. He was fired often though because on numerous occasions he was caught taking money from the cash register. Oh, not even drinking. Can't do that. No. Just robbing the place. No. Robbing the place blind. You're probably allowed to drink, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Just stealing. Jesus Christ. In 1959, he managed a small chain of candy stores in Brooklyn. In 61, he was briefly employed by the New York Giants at their spring training site in Arizona. His duties involved not fucking hitting instructor or anything baseball related. His duties involved maintenance activities and cleaning the pool

What he was just on the team five years ago now. He's cleaning the pool. What are you talking about grab the skimmer for Hank? What the fuck yeah, there's some there's a dead bird in the filter Frank you want to go Hank you want to grab that There's a couple holy shit Hank you want to go Hank you want to grab that there's a couple holy shit Wow That didn't last very long though. So he moved back to Texas when it was all over What's he doing the crime and sports rule that he's breaking he's going home right the fuck real. This is not good This isn't good. Yeah, he is like a Just a prototype for a crime and sports athlete this guy so he

athlete this guy so he june january 30th 1958 it says pick hank thompson off base with auto that's the daily news headline here with auto hank thompson former new york giants baseball star got himself into big trouble last night on charges of stealing a car. Shortly before 10 o'clock Thompson 33, holy shit, of St. Nicholas Avenue was booked on at the Wadsworth Avenue station. Groaning mildly because of a monumental hangover, Hank was jugged pending an arraignment in magistrates court today. Detective Redmond Burke gave this account, here we go, at 4 a.m. yesterday, he just needs to not be out at 4 a.m. 4 a.m. is a bad time for him. At 4 a.m. yesterday, bent on rushing over to a party in Brooklyn, Hank went to the garage at 167th Street and Amsterdam Avenue where he keeps his own car.

It was there but blocked by a battery of other vehicles. Up front, free and clear and with keys in it was the auto of Walter Jones 35, a merchant seaman. See, I'll just take this one. Yeah. You can't do that. Jesus Christ. So anxious to get on with the festivities, Hank climbed into Jones's auto and made it to Brooklyn, Burke said. Came the dawn and many hours more and Hank still was having a ball the detective said at 4 p.m Hank fell into himself in conversation in a Harlem tavern with two men They were Frank norfleet 38 a waiter and Richard Lauber

33 a chauffeur and they had someplace important to go Hank affidably gave them the car keys He happened to have and off they went. He said, take this car. Yeah, you can't do this. Nope. If he needed to go to the store and he drove it and came back and said, you shouldn't have blocked me in,

that would be one thing. This guy took more than 12 hours, now he's loaning it to other people. You block it in and leave the keys in it. That's telling me, take this one if you need yours. Yeah, just take that. That's what I'm saying here. Just in case. Sorry I did that. So before the guy who owned the car even noticed it was missing and reporting it to the cops, this is 5pm a patrolman at the 100 West 157th 2nd Street Station spotted the auto at 150th Street in Amsterdam Avenue

Flagged down the two guys inside to pull over and arrested them for fucking having a stolen car They said no. No, it's a mistake. No. No Hank Thompson great. You know, hey friends car our buddy Hank Thompson You know him good old Hank. He played for the Giants and everything. Yeah, you know him He said that he gave me the vehicle So this cop got Hank Thompson on the phone at his home at 730 p.m. with a hangover and all this shit and they said can you come down here and clear some shit up for us Hank so he came down to the station and said no it's all true and I thought that I did give him the car and yeah no I just took it. It was just outside. And so he's arrested, obviously.

You can't have that. So he appears in court on auto theft charges here. You're not only, Jesus, it's auto theft and fucking lending. I guess he got some advice from the judge here. The charges against his two friends were dismissed here. Oh no, the charges against him were dismissed here. Oh, no the charges against him were dismissed, too. Oh And the judge just told him quote behave yourself Yeah, we'll call it a misunderstanding as long as you keep it keep your nose clean

Well, the owner of the car said he didn't want to press charges, right? Cuz that's so that's a great story good old good old Hank Yeah, that crazy Hank as long as it didn't get wrecked or something, who cares? Yeah, crazy Hank. Oh my God, if the cops called me tomorrow and said, Tim Raines has your truck in Scottsdale, I'd be like, oh my God, that's crazy. Yeah, don't, keep him. Let him keep it.

Can he, will he sit down and tell me Coke stories first? Yeah, I want to know a lot of Coke stories for sure. Why does Joe Carter have my car? I don't know. But I'm willing to listen to the story. Tell me a home run story and we'll call it even. You know what Hank's excuse was? What?

I was shit faced. You don't understand. I was drunk driving. That's what happened. He said I was partying and I wanted to go to this other party and I couldn't get my car so I was so shit faced I didn't know how to figure it out so I just grabbed this one and drove. And the guy said, no problem Hank.

Have you seen license to drive? Same thing happened to me. Yeah, me, you, Corey Haim, it happens to everybody. April 13th, 1959, Thompson faces several charges. It's all falling apart. This former New York Giants third baseman was to be arraigned on a felony Monday on charges of burglary and assault for allegedly punching a woman press agent and stealing three dollars from her purse.

Oh no, Hank, Hank, it's gotten so low. Assaulted a lady over three bucks? That's a mugging. He mugged a woman for three dollars. That is pathetic. The charges against him were brought by Mrs. Ruth Bowen, 34, who told police. She and her husband, a musician Billy Billy Bowen had known Thompson for about six years. They know the guy. You punched a friend for three hours. Wow. Jesus.

She said Thompson came to their apartment Saturday night, beat her up, threatened to kill her and rifled through her purse. He just, this is a friend of theirs, just showed up and said, where's your fucking money and started beating her up. Holy fuck. She said that she fled the apartment and was treated at the hospital for injuries. Police said Thompson called Mrs. Bowen's husband Sunday and set up a meeting with him on Harlem Street corner where police called by Bowen arrested him.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That is fucking amazing. By the way, Billy Bowen was the singer of the ink spots. That was the band which was a band That was a bigger band 1959 Hank and Maria get divorced so everything it couldn't be going worse for him It honestly couldn't be going worse. So I mean he's gonna be sitting in his empty. I assume shitty apartment by now

It's empty. Yeah, it's empty trying to figure out how to Hey how to make a living how to stay out of jail. He had nothing now. He's got no that Yeah, half of nothing. He's only 34 He's 34 where this happens. He's only thing hasn't even turned 34 yet. He's fucking 33 years old. In what year? 1962? 1959. 1959.

Oh my God. I mean, Jesus Christ, he should still be playing in the majors. Buck O'Neill was still hitting fucking 30 home runs at his age. This is crazy shit. So he's sitting at home. What are you going to do? I mean, Jesus, he's got to be plotting, crying Scheming doing whatever you can but either way what he does need is he needs to spruce this place up a little bit There's one person that can help him with that. He comes a knock and it's Dexter Manley interior decorator from New York City

and he says How is it you've come to arrive here? Seriously, you were like, you're like hanging out with like Willie Mays. You know how cool he is? He's fucking Willie Mays. And you're like, you're you. He talks more flamboyant than me. He's the only man more excited than me.

I say, Willie, this is gonna look right in your place. And he goes, yes it is. And we go back and forth. And then it's just, we get so excited. So. Straightest plan boy and man on the planet. You sir. You're going around.

You're punching ladies. You're doing gross things like that. You're a cab driver in frac. What are you doing? You sir are white trash. I'm sorry, you are. I don't care where you're from or what you are, but you're just,, sir, are white trash. I'm sorry, you are. I don't care where you're from or what you are, but you're acting like white trash.

This is white trash behavior as a whole. You're divorcing your wife because you're punching a woman in the head. Do you get it? Do you get it? You act like you poop in a bucket, is what I'm getting at here. So move to West Virginia or get your shit together, mister.

I have to go now. This place is not up to my standards. Poof, and he's gone in a cloud of boas and feathers and interior design ideas. So February 26, 1961. Okay, 1.30 AM. Again, you know something bad's going to happen now. Hank walks into a bar called Bill's Place. This is like a joke.

It's 1am, Hank walks into a bar. There's a priest, a rabbi, and a midget. And Bill. It's on Amsterdam Avenue in the Washington Heights section of Harlem in right by the old Polo grounds by the way where he starred he was drunk he was depressed and He asked he held a gun to the bartender's head what and said do you know who I am? And the guy said no when he said oh oh good, then give me all your money. Oh.

Like yeah, if you can't, yeah you don't know I'm Hank Thompson, you won't go tell the cops, fine then give me your money. But that's how he got it. So he robbed, he armed robbery of a bar here. In Harlem? In Harlem, yeah. And he's arrested of course on charges of, but he did get away, I'm sure it would have been a, it's a big hall and well worth it

37 dollars he got out of this. Holy fucking shit. Yep he took that amount from Bill's bar. Wow that is crazy. When the judge looking over his lengthy arrest record said quote you are a serious disappointment to thousands of children and baseball fans if these facts are true I hope for your sake that they are not Yikes he told police he was 40, but he's really not 40. He's only 35. I don't know why he told police he was 40 Makes no sense by the way a few years earlier about 1957 in this same bar Yeah, so he's a place he hung out By the way, a few years earlier, about 1957, in this same bar, Yeah? He's a place he hung out.

What? He's a fucking moron. He's like the guy in White Men Can't Jump who's going to rob the store of the guy he knew. Is that you? Nah man, nah man, that ain't me. That was the funniest shit. Was it Randall?

Was that his name? Something like that. Is that you? Whatever. And he's like, nah man, nah that ain't me. He's making his voice all high. He's like, man, get the hell out of here. He tells him, get the hell out of here, god him get the hell out of here goddamn. He says all right fine. I know

Then he goes you want to buy a gun? And he sells him the gun he tried to rob him with that was the greatest thing ever I Love that but in this same bar. He had sold his 1954 World Series ring. No way. For $250. Oh, where is that ring? Oh, man, dude. I want that ring.

Yeah, I want to know where it is. That's an awesome ring to have. I want to track that ring down and find out where it is. How do we find out? I don't know. That's going to be something. Let's make that a mission of ours. We're going to find out where Hank Thompson's ring is.

You paid $250. I'm giving you $300. I'll give you $350. I'll make it fair. So bail is set at $10,000 for Hank, which he certainly doesn't have. He doesn't even have the $37 he stole. He spent that on gas to get away. Oh my God. Yeah, Jesus fucking Christ

So that is terrible Then there's a story right under that. It's a little more whimsical Flying house just misses Scott's boater Donald McCord McCord o Dale was chugging peacefully along in his boat Thursday when a piece of his house Fell out of the sky and almost brained him Wow, that's in the newspaper O'Dale was chugging peacefully along in his boat Thursday when a piece of his house fell out of the sky and almost brained him. Wow! That's in the newspaper.

It happened to be his house! His house. He's a ferryman for the islands of Seal and Easdale, which have no other means of transport to the mainland. He lives in Easdale, where his housing is scarce. Recently the county council agreed to provide him with better dwelling. They decided to carry in a prefabricated house by helicopter since the island has no pier suitable for cargo ships. The helicopter was carrying parts of the house to there when a 300 pound chunk of the roof broke loose and almost killed the man.

Oh boy! Of his own house. Wow. Let's see here. Thompson is indicted here for stealing $37. He could face a maximum penalty of 59 years in prison for that. Jesus. Holy shit. The second degree assault, first degree grand larceny, first degree robbery. So $3,500 bail, it's down to, but no one is giving him that. And it's none of his old ball player friends are coming

who is that Willie Mays is rich right now. He's not helping him. Monty Ervin's not helping him. Leo DeRosier's not helping him. Nobody's helping him. November 11th, 1961, he is, he's going to plead guilty to a charge of third-degree robbery. I Feel like they feel bad for him sure feels like yeah

I feel like that he's a world series champion for the Giants and I feel like they feel bad for him like he's his life Has fallen the fuck apart So he is going to be placed on you sir may fuck off a suspended sentence and placed under indefinite probation. Just you fuck up too much. He is not to drink liquor and is to go to the San Francisco Giants training camp near Phoenix where a job awaits him. That's the job of him cleaning fucking pools as if he couldn't be low enough. This team doesn't try to bring him back into the fold and build him up, put a uniform on him and say go go do

some instructional shit with some young guys or something like that. They say clean the fucking pool. Here's a strainer. You're sentenced to pool cleaning duty. Wow that's fucked up man. So the defense attorney in a plea deal for Thompson said that Quote his rise to fame was too fast and his drop too sudden. Yeah, that is a Torsious job though cleaning pools in Arizona. You don't get in it. She's just right It's on the side of a pool sweating your fucking ass off. In the most humid place there is in Phoenix, next to a fucking pool that is being just

evaporating constantly. The sun just beats on you and you just go, I wish I could get in this pool. Oh man. So the reason why he got probation was letters from Giants owner Horace Stoneham and Ford Frick the baseball commissioner, both sent letters to the judge asking for probation and to give him another chance. Be nice to this guy. So they did. And then in July 1962, he walked into a Houston, Texas liquor store with a stolen gun and held it up and committed armed robbery again with a stolen gun. In Texas,

my friend. In Houston. Don't do that. He ended up somehow getting away from there. And in July 1963, he is charged in Evansville, Indiana with burgling a print shop from which he allegedly stole two handguns. Oh, boy. The reason for the robbery and burglary was, quote, he was drunk and needed money.

He's drunk and broke, yeah? Drunk needed money. He's drunk and broke, yeah. Drunk and broke. He's on indefinite probation. What happened to that? How did New York let him? So, fuck, in Evansville, this is July of 63, he's charged with robbery and yeah, robbery by firearms and burglary. He's being held in connection with a liquor store robbery and the burglary of a print

shop Friday night. So that's a lot of shit going on for him here. The liquor store owner Jack C. Torregrossa said the man who robbed his store forced him into a back room at gunpoint, locked him in there and took about a hundred fifty dollars cash and two pints of whiskey. I'm sorry, it ended up with with $270 in cash is what they figured out though and two pints yep he was arrested apprehended sent to court here and we'll talk about his sentence in the beginning and I'll talk about his sentence here we'll learn a little bit more about the 62 thing here let's see

here Hank talking about him They say he will not be around for the World Series next week or the next three or four after that at least This article says he went to jail in Houston Wednesday Sentenced to you sir may fuck off ten years in prison Well, that'll be a lesson. It added up added up. That's the problem. It added up. You're lucky they're not putting you to death. It's Texas. You can't hold people at gunpoint, especially when you're drunk, man. You could kill them by accident. That's not good. Not good at all. With good behavior, he will be eligible for parole in four years, though.

Interesting. Gary Shoemaker, the veteran public relations man of the Giants said, He was a real high class guy, intelligent, well liked by other players. He could play anywhere. For years he was one of the real good players on the team, but he always had a drinking problem. When he drank, he would do things that you just couldn't explain. It was like room only minutes after a shade came down over his robbery involving $150? I don't know how that makes sense, but okay So yeah, he was in trouble. He's been in trouble all the time. So Obviously one time by the way, he tried to rob a liquor store Well where he was well known and that got rushed under the

Robbing liquor stores like the lowest of robbery That's terrible, man. September 28th, 1963. He says that drinking and gold diggers led him to this gold diggers, gold diggers. Yeah. Is that a type of booze? What does that gold sloggers? Other one there.

So he says that he's a cell awaits him and transfer to a Texas state prison in Huntsville for 10 years sentence here. Thompson, one of the first big league Negro stars got more than $11,000 as a winner share in the World Series. He got $90 in the robbery of a Houston liquor store. Again, the numbers range from 90 to 150 to 250. They don't get numbers right in these old, shot anywhere from three to nine times, robbed anywhere from 38 to $250. Anywhere in there. So this is an interview with him in jail,

and they asked him, they said that he estimates he made, this is from endorsements, barnstorming, salaries, $250,000 in his career. A quarter million dollars in the fucking 40s and 50s back Then was like making a couple million dollars And they said well where did it all go his answer quote liquor and gold diggers the drink God, which is definitely the name of this episode Liquor and gold diggers, I would say for sure

Kanye West song it's it pretty much is I think think Hank Thompson was a co-writer on that one. He said he can't figure out how he went downhill. He said, quote, it could be in my head. I was beaned four times during my career. And one of those times I was in the hospital for two weeks. I get some bad headaches. He's got post-concussion, CTE type of deal. I see some people drink and they can sit there and just go all right on talking.

I can't, I have to strike out at something. Usually my friends are sometimes myself. Um, well, we'll give it, here's an explanation of the robbery. Let's give them in their own words here. What do you say? Let's go in their own words, quote, I was drinking the night I pulled the robbery. It was the first time I had ever done anything like that, but I needed money to get back to California where I had a job waiting.

That's his explanation. That's a crazy reason to rob. Travel and money. Yeah, and train ticket. He probably could've asked the Giants for a train ticket. They probably would've given it to him. You know what I mean? So I mean, honestly, the guy's been through a lot. A lot brought on himself too. A lot brought on himself. I mean, he's in

the war. Any of those World War II guys, I respect them. Now a lot of them too, it's they started drinking after the war. He was a drunk before he ever went to the war. So he can't blame that on the war, but he has been hit in the head. I'm sure he wasn't treated fairly in baseball. Yeah, the guy in the same way of the rocher lined from it yeah yeah so I mean anything can happen here so you got to kind of feel bad for Hank a little bit here and I do feel bad for Hank Jimmy but not nearly as bad as I feel for Hank Thompson CPA at the premier trucker group in Knoxville, Tennessee. Really?

Oh yeah, Hank Thompson, field sales professional at BSN Sports. Oh! So you can even look up sports Hank Thompson. He comes up here. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma. He did this one. Hank Thompson, mechanical engineer at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California. And lastly, Henry William Thompson, Hank Thompson, the, of course, the country singer.

Yeah, of course him. When did he sing? 40s? Well, here's an ad. Here's an ad from the, he looks young in this picture, the Vallejo Times Herald, June 11th, 1949, dance Sunday, June 12th, 2pm to 5pm, Hank Thompson and his orchestra. So he's got an orchestra going on at that point. He was a big stupid ad. Yeah, yeah, he was a douchebag too. He's not a nice guy from what I understand.

Dude, it's crazy how many of those guys back then were just such pieces of shit. A lot of them, they were outlaws. Yeah, they were bad dudes. This was a way to not have a job. It wasn't considered like a career. It was a way to not have a job and go around and be able to drink at work and fuck women afterwards.

It's a scam, So it's good shit. Um, and as you might, if you watch wild and wonderful whites of West Virginia, his grandson is way fucked up. He his bloodline has gone down to a guy fucking, I don't even know how to describe it. What is that? The tattoo kid? Yeah. Yeah. That's not, oh, he's Hank Williams on Hank Thompson never mind yeah, this is Hank Thompson He's a piece of shit too, but that was Hank Williams grandson. Yeah, that's right. Was that Hank Williams? Yes, he was Hank Williams the third that guy. Well, yeah, you're right. That is him. Oh the guy

Yeah, his songs are so bad. Fuck. Yeah Yeah, you're right. That is him. Oh the guy got his songs are so bad. Fuck. Yeah When questioned by reporters about this incident he said this quote my luck has been bad. I want to see a doctor I want to see what's wrong with me and try to get straightened out. I feel bad about this You're an alcoholic. That's what's wrong with you According to prison officials. He was a model prisoner That's what's wrong with you. According to prison officials. He was a model prisoner After just six months at the really shitty prison. He was transferred to the Ferguson unit Which was designed for far less violent criminals seemed to be fine He was assigned to the recreation department where he coached the prison baseball team and was given a job

Supervising the 17 to 21 year old offenders. Oh god. Yeah, before long he was made a trustee and he ended up joining AA in prison as well. And started saying he needed, started saying rather than what's wrong with me, I need to check myself out, he started saying what's wrong with me is I was drunk all the time. I did all these things when I was shit faced.

So that's a problem In an interview he said when I get out I'm going to have to walk down the streets with liquor stores and bars and I'll have to make a choice Walk past them and live or walk into one and run wild again. They say life begins at 40 it better for me God, I hope fucking better man He said he doesn't blame others, he doesn't blame society, he doesn't blame his shitty childhood,

he doesn't blame the fact that he was black in a time where that was going up against him, he doesn't blame any of that shit at all. He said, I'm a drunk and no one made me drink, period. That's it, just the alcohol. He's a drunk. So, 1967, he is paroled. Oh, yeah. He served three years of a 10 year sentence and he is parole paroled. The headline on the story in the prison newspaper was Hank

Steals Home, which is great. Clever prisoners. Clever. Yeah, it is interesting that 1944 seems like a million years ago, but 1969 doesn't seem that far. Doesn't seem that long ago. It's only 15 years apart. Meanwhile, think about it this way, in 1984, 1944 was the same distance ago as 1984 is to now. Yeah. So when you were a kid, 1944 was that distance of not even, we don't think of 84 as back

too far. Yeah. That's how it was then. Wait, 64 is 25 years, isn't it? Sorry. 69 to, yeah. Yeah, I was, nevermind. But 69 to 44 is only now to 1999. That's unbelievable.

That's not, yeah, that's crazy. It's unbelievable. It's wild. So after being released from prison on good behavior, he moved to Fresno where his mother lived. I haven't heard of his family in a long time. They didn't pop up forever. So yeah, he basically turned his life around. He was sober.

He's active in the AA groups in Fresno. He got married again to a woman named Betty Turner of Fresno and he held a steady job. Turning it around. He was hired by the Fresno Recreation Department as playground director at the Frank H Ball playground. At least he's got, they're like, you know balls and stuff, right? So I mean, it's not the career I'm sure he was looking for,

but he doesn't have to rob people to buy booze now, which is good. He said it's also important to him because playgrounds is where kids are, and he said he thinks he can maybe help young people from going down his road, basically. Like, hey, I played with Willy fucking Mays in World Series ring that I don't have right now. Now you're fixing the slide. Yeah. Now when something breaks, you complain to me about it.

See how that works? He said when talking to young people he always gave them the following advice. He said get advice about money, how to save it and how to invest it. He said live a clean life, stay away from those good time people who pretend to be your friends, stay away from liquor, stay healthy. And then he said baseball is the cleanest sport we have so treat it decent. Wow, give it a minute bud. Also stop writing dick on the underside of the swings. I'm tired of wiping this.

Molly's wiping that off, that's enough now. Real funny to do it in Sharpie, you think that shit's funny don't you? Bullshit. this is my advice The his supervisor at the Parks Department there said he did a tremendous job He was dedicated and helped quite a few boys who could have gone wrong. That's great So he did great on another interesting side note here the January 14th edition of the 69 1969 The January 14th edition of the 1969 Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper reported that a movie about the life of Hank Thompson would be released in March of that year.

Sidney Poitier was reported as the star of the movie. I think he's dead, right? Sidney Poitier now he is, yeah. It's unclear whether the movie was ever produced, but research shows that it was never released to theaters. They don't know if it was ever produced, but it never came out if it was produced. He occasionally made trips to San Francisco to visit Willie Mays and watch his old team. In 1969, he appeared in a Giants old timers game that was played in San Francisco, which

Willie was still fucking playing then. I want to say Willie played till 73 or some shit like ridiculously long he played for. Willie'd love to be there, but he's got a game against the Royals. Yes, sorry, man. So then he ends up in a modest home in the Butler Park area of Fresno with his wife and two stepchildren. So he's doing that. In 1969, Hank viewed his prison time as a savior, he said in an interview. He said, I really think that I should be glad I got sent to the correctional farm in Ferguson, Texas. I needed to be stopped. If I hadn't been, I would have killed somebody or I would have gotten myself killed. He should have

said again because he did kill a guy. He literally killed a guy. Cricking is not good for him. I would have been to jail for killing someone. Yeah, yeah. 1969, they talk, they kind of, here's a reminiscent tale basically here. They say Henry Thompson, 43, his hairline beginning to recede.

Yeah, good for you, just beginning then. Just beginning. In the living room of his modest home They said it's in the Butler Park area on the east side of Fresno not fancy, but clean well-kept and livable Yeah, he said I was born in Oklahoma, and I was always playing baseball We moved to Texas later Dallas, and I got through 11 grades of school there But then the monarchs came along and offered me a contract for spring training. He didn't go to school that long. He's out of his mind. Yeah, he said that his career was interrupted by military service and all that. And he said, I think he said that Jay

Wilkerson, the Browns owner started scouting the Negro leagues. I think he wanted drawing cards. And he said, but the Indians, he said his legs fucked him up. That's what his career was the problem. He said the Indians couldn't stop me during this one thing, but his legs could. He said they just went bad. Just bad legs. He said, really they've been bad for a long time, but it said it got worse and worse and worse.

He said, I could still hit. He said when he was on the AAA team in Minneapolis, but I was getting thrown out on balls that should have been doubles. He couldn't run anymore. He said, I was on the triple-a team in Minneapolis, but I was getting thrown out on balls that should have been doubles He couldn't run anymore. Yeah, he said I was only 32, but I told red Davis the manager and Rosie Ryan the general manager I just couldn't do it anymore So he said he was offered a job as a bird bird dog, but he didn't take it He said I had saved some money, but it began going real fast

I worked at a lot of jobs, bartending, selling cars, officiating ball games, but nothing satisfied me and nothing was steady. Then my first marriage broke up. He said it was my own fault, I guess. I hadn't had a bad childhood or anything like that. A lot of people would say you did, but that's fine. But well, you make the big money and you live high,

and I did. It takes so long to get there And then all of a sudden you don't have $200 or $300 in your pocket you come down. Maybe overnight You know how difficult that is? He said he began drinking constantly. He said sometimes I might be drunk days at a time Yeah, he said all the time man. He said that One night he said in 63. This is his Robbery he said I was over at a friend's house watching TV and drinking The friend called and asked me to get him a telephone number out of his desk a desk drawer I saw a pistol in there. I was short of money and I was half drunk

So now they're saying you got $270 from holding up the liquor store. Holy shit. Called the matinee club here. He said, the owner saw that gun sticking out of my shirt and right away he called the police or she called the police. They picked me up and that was it. I really think that I should be glad I got sent to the correctional farm in Ferguson, Texas. I needed to be stopped.

If I hadn't been, I would have killed somebody or I would have gotten killed Myself. Yeah He said after listening to some of the prisoner stories and what life had done to them I felt lucky as hell sure Yeah, he said especially talking to some of those 17 to 21 year old kids who'd had just a horrible time So he said he's still working with youth running the playground Never got the big money again, but he says he worries about his taxes and how to meet his budget at this point.

He said that's it. That's all he does. He's just trying to... Paying my chunk. Now James Baldwin, the author, spent several days with Tom Sinlo not long ago and is writing the story of his life. Baldwin will call it Rough Diamond. They said the book should be out in three or four months. I don't know if it was ever

released or not. So then September 30th 1969, that was right after that interview, he has a seizure and is transported to the Fresno VA Hospital. His mother and wife were there at his side while he died whoa at 43 years old 43 Those dead those balls to the head had to knock something. They had right. There's no way that didn't contribute to this seizure They said that his death was listed as natural causes perhaps a heart attack or seizure They couldn't tell or perhaps a fastball that they had 20 years ago.

Fastball, yeah, knocked a something loose, a chunk of something loose, and then also all that drinking couldn't have been great for his body either. No, that's not good for your body either. So yeah, so the day he died was 13 years to the day that he played his last game in the major leagues. Oh, wow. Isn't that crazy?

So dead, his mother and his wife. And 13 being like an unlucky number too. That's fucked up Yeah, it's per. He's unlucky is a good way to put Hank Thompson. Yeah, he's unlucky He said I became a baseball. I became a baseball has been at 32. It was awful I couldn't move around third baseballs were going by me. I should have had I was disgracing baseball and I still kept boozing it up. Former Negro League catcher Staniel Glenn, Staniel, Stanley Glenn probably did his best job describing Hank Topps in this one article says

he categorized him the following way, quote, a little bit off center. He had a drinking problem and a woman problem. He was like a time bomb, but he was all baseball on the field. He had all kinds of abilities. Yeah. And another monarch's catcher here, Sammy Haynes said that he had a lot had a lot of little kid in him, but he had a temper and liked to play rough. Got a lot of fucking honky tonk country in him too. A little bit. From Oklahoma, Texas. Loving booze and bad women. That's awesome.

Growing up in Dallas. But I mean, who doesn't love booze and bad women. That's awesome. Growing up in Dallas. But I mean, who doesn't love booze and bad women? How's that country? I mean, letting it kill you. That's country. Letting it kill you. That's rock and roll period, isn't it? That's not country.

Yeah, it's just, I don't know. Rock stars are way better than that than country. Hockey talk guys love letting that shit kill them. Country guys just have a fucking wife in their stupid farm and they sit on a tractor. It's also comedy. Yeah, yeah, it's also comedy. What moves a bad woman kill you?

Well, that's comedy, wrestling, there's a lot of industries. That's just dudes that refuse to grow up. Yeah, that's, they do a job like this because they don't want to be adults. And then we wonder why they fucking don't, yeah. yeah what do you think why do you think we do this yeah because being an adult sucks this is we don't have to be adults we get to hang out like we're two teenagers this is great that's it can't get enough of Hank

Thompson well you can get a Hank Thompson 1952 tops card with a black back number three I wonder if this is a reprint or something because it's only $12.99. It's a reprint yeah. For a $57 even for a $52 even the commons are fucking. Something made in 1952 is not under $500. Wow yeah that's crazy and then a $57 Hank Thompson Giants card tops seven dollars. They gotta be No way gotta be so anyway there you go. There is Hank Thompson What a story crazy fucking story crazy guy crazy just a flash He's a flash that we don't even hear about him. That's the crazy part never heard of him

We don't know him at all when he played amongst a time that was like legendary. He played in a league that was legendary. And in that time. At the cusp of black people being integrated into Major League Baseball. He's one of the first few. He was one of the first few guys. And he did great at it. And he fucking won.

He integrated the first New York team. And won. And won. And that time too, the early 50s, that was the, it's called the golden age of New York baseball because you had the, you know, you had the Giants, the Dodgers and the Yankees and they were all fucking good. They were all going to the World Series every year and it was like, must have been a great time to grow up there, but unless you were...

Unless you had to wear the wool. Yeah. So, there you go everybody, there's Hank Thompson. If you like that story, tell the world about it tell everybody about it get on Whatever app you are on and please give a five-star review and say something lovely it doesn't matter what the fuck you say Oh say that just say it's a great show say Hank Thompson liked his booze Say what other industries are terrible that cause brain damage. It doesn't matter booze and bad women That's it booze and bad women. That's it. Booze

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Teams singing together. Why'd you do this song? Guys who have no business business rapping, fucking rapping. We'll talk all about it because there's so many that we didn't get to like the, the Florida one or my university of Miami guys rapping and all that shit. It's so bad. We'll talk about all that and more on small town murder. We're going to talk about remote viewing, which was really cultivated by the CIA

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Jimmy, hit me with the names of the people who would never come into our liquor store and rob us just because they were drunk. Hit me with them right fucking now. This week's executive producers are Cody and Lainey Leversey. They're bringing a bunch of people to next year's shows. They're terrific people. Good people. I think they're trying. I don't know. That doesn't matter. I'm not going to talk about what they're trying to do. I think they're trying to have kids, but I'm not sure. They

just got married, the crazy kids. I saw their post all nice and nice people. I love that, Cody's fantastic. Anyway, Steven Todd, or maybe Toe, T-O-T? I don't know if that's Toe, it could be Toe. It's Todd. All right. We're calling him Todd, he's a tater tot.

There it is. Gary Howard, Noel Meeks, Noel Pee. Hey, congratulations, Gary. Oh, Gary's kids are trying to have kids, there you go. Yes, Gary had a brand new grandchild and we'd like to say congratulations to Gary. Oh, Gary's kids are trying to have kids. There you go. Yes, Gary had a brand new grandchild and we'd like to say congratulations to Gary on that. Good job, buddy.

Regina Breivolt, yeah. Good job having a kid a long time ago. Good job. I don't know what you had to do with it. He had a kid 25 years ago. Wouldn't be possible without him. Maybe he put his foot on the kid's ass and pushed him in deeper

Get in there up toward the cervix. Let's go Ropes I'm telling all right Regina freeholds bryo Linda coat Cody maybe Mike Connor the coolest police chief in America Diana warly he's terrific good guy. Thanks fucking he's I love him other producers Moore, Diana Warley, he's terrific. Good guy, thanks brother. Fucking, he's, I love him. Other producers this week, Peyton Meadows, Elizabeth Rockefeller, Janice Hill, Brock Hall, Abbey would know last name, Emily Michigan, Clarence Bunch, I don't know if that's Michigan, that may have been a correction from Apple. I don't remember typing Michigan. Who knows, that might be Apple's problem.

Clarence Bunch, Warren Taylor, Savannah with no last name, Lee Arnold, Jeffrey Thomas, 401 Ontario, Michael Cermak, Stacey Crosby, Kristen Piper, Jason with no last name, Suzanne Jackson, Dot Jenkins, Spells Cast Art, Lisa Mont Montoya darling Chalaway Josh would know last name Megan Russell kit Tiley Teresa Tapscott a Lee Allie Allie Nolten Sarah Lewis the sin hitman 97 Dorothea Sterling Daisy May Kelly Greenwald Andy would know last name Krista Johnson Andrew know last name Leonard failing Maybe Liz would know last name Ashley Smodich. Chris Weber, probably not. Oh yeah, Chris. Hey, don't call time out,

Chris. Check how many you have first. Time out, Chris. Panda Sanchez. Jared Laurent. Emily Payne. Brianna Coda. Ratch with no last name. I imagine that's short for Rachel. AJ. Bryce with no last name. Or Ratchet, you never's down she may have some self-awareness she looks in the mirror and goes they just call me ranch Chris my hunter Travoss tray Vosky Treyosky what is oh that's a V Travoss key Caroline Drinau Tucker lift lisping Lars quartz Aaron with no last name Jacob Magnum and help it Ashley Marie Renee Lynn What was it? What did I miss the Tucker can't help it? He's listening He never grew up Joe Dickinson Laura teary Tay with no last name Taylor Martin

Duncan Lane Austin Mason Callie Smith Karen Mays, Rob Ellis, Hunter Paulus, Paulus, Paulus, Holland Potter, Andrea Burton, Heather Neal, Brandon, Machado, Collisa McAllister, Megan Durner, Jason Christ, Rick Weiss, Perisphone, Persephone, Persephone, is that a name? Persephone perhaps if it's Italian? I don't know. Hey, it's a Persephone. Jen the Dinosaur. I see. Per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per-per- balls. Erica Longo, Bailey Bayless, Howard Haley, Hal, Hale, Hale, that's what it is. Brent McNamara, Jeannie, Jeannie Larson, Sean Major, Love My Ink, David F., Amanda Hepler, Maria with no last name, Courtney Hall, Kyle with no last name, May with no last name,

Claire and Nicola, Samantha Zuniga, Laurel Schultz, Laurel is what it is. Nicole with no last name, Molly Goggin, Travis Stotz, Dana Ranky Gums, Ashley Jackson, Lavinia Hale, Robin with no last name, Natasha Combs, Amber Gonzalez, Brandy, nope that's Brandon. Brandon, Bobby Willie, Patterson, Natalie, Natalie Miller, Ruby Jo, Johnny Ruiz, Andrew W., Allison Roberts, Otto with no last name, Brad with no last name, Aaron Atienso, Crystal Taylor, Sonny with no last name, Kelsey Walkers, Watkins, god damn it,

Chris, Chris, oh, Scriven, Scrinver, Scrivner, ah, Scrivner maybe. Reading is hard, isn't it? It's the fucking worst. It really is, all week. Melanie Gunther, and then as I finish one, there comes another. Shell with no last name, Jessica Garcia, Hell's Half Acre.

I don't know if that's the place. Isn't that a restaurant or a bar and grill or some shit? Is Hell's Half Acre a thing? It's like an idiom, like a cliche. Is it? It's like Hell's Half Acre, that place is. I don't know what it is. You call it a Maybe, is Hell's Half Acre a thing? It's like an idiom, like a cliche. Is it? It's like Hell's Half Acre, that place is. I don't know what it is. You call it a shitty house, Hell's Half Acre.

Maybe I should read more books. Natalie Cook, Leah Arrington, Sam Penner, Amy Neurer, Donna Jones, Kaalia Martin, Kaalia Kaalia, Janine Tenbrook, Jordan Alivado, DK, like Donkey Kong, 10 brook 10 broke Jordan alivado DK like Donkey Kong Erica Celeste Ellis Carly Osborne Harley Weigert DB would know last name like Cooper Dustin Callahan bean would know last name Taylor would know last name Renee Blaine Ashley Fazzino win would know last name Melissa would know last name Tracy would know last name Eric Wright gl. Glennie. Glennie Redd. Todd Usher. Quentin Binkley. Cameron Hughes. Tasha Yarbrough. Nick Fricano. Emily would know last name.

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